Christopher Jesina 1/30/26 Christopher Jesina 1/30/26

March 15: Violinist Kristin Lee is Featured Soloist with the Olympia Symphony in Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons Conducted by Rei Hotoda

Violinist Kristin Lee is Featured Soloist with the Olympia Symphony in Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons Conducted by Rei Hotoda

***Photo by Lauren Desberg available in hi-resolution at*** ***www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/kristin-lee***

Violinist Kristin Lee
is Featured Soloist with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Rei Hotoda
in Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons

Sunday, March 15, 2026 at 3pm
Capital High School Performing Arts Center | 2707 Conger Avenue NW | Olympia, WA
Tickets & Information

Kristin Lee: www.violinistkristinlee.com

Olympia, WA – Violinist Kristin Lee – praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy” – is presented in concert with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, March 15, 2026 at 3pm conducted by Rei Hotoda, who makes her debut with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra in this performance. Lee is the featured soloist in Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons The concert program, titled Transform, also includes Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss. The performance will take place in Capital High School Performing Arts Center (2707 Conger Avenue NW). Lee last performed with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra in 2024.

A violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique, Kristin Lee enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and artistic director. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Strad reports, “She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.”

Through both her work as a classical soloist, and her role as the Artistic Director of Emerald City Music – a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State – Lee has embraced works that showcase diversity of styles, composers, and time periods. Her adventurousness with programming and curation make this performance of Max Richter’s contemporary reimagining of Vivaldi’s iconic Four Seasons a perfect demonstration of Lee’s appreciation of the traditional classical canon and music from the modern era. Richter’s work blends the past and the present, and is performed in celebration of the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s original.

“I am delighted to return as soloist with the Olympia Symphony, particularly as we celebrate the 300th anniversary of the publication of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Max Richter’s reimagining of this beloved masterpiece pays profound tribute to its history while infusing it with relevant creativity. I am deeply grateful to take part in this special performance and look forward to sharing this unique musical experience with our Olympia audience.”

Performing on a violin crafted in Italy in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano, in addition to her solo appearances, Kristin Lee tours throughout the world as a member of New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, including in Italy, Croatia, Germany, Taiwan, and across the U.S. Always up for adventure, at the Moab Music Festival in Utah, Lee has performed in such unexpected places as rafting down the Colorado River, in a natural rock grotto, and in the magical landscape of the red rock canyons of the area.

Other highlights of Lee’s 2025-2026 season include her Carnegie Hall recital debut performing American Sketches, a program curated by Lee as a celebration of the diversity of styles and cultures found in American music, as well as a symbol of Lee’s appreciation of and pride in the U.S., which she has long called her home. Lee will also perform with GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion in the world premiere of a new work by Vivan Fung, which is part of a special all-premiere concert presented by Emerald City Music as part of its 10th Anniversary Season. In addition, she performs as the featured soloist with the Nu-Deco Ensemble in A Reimagined Vivaldi Four Seasons, arranged by Sam Hyken, in another performance highlighting the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s timeless work.

Kristin Lee’s debut solo album, American Sketches – released in summer 2024 on the First Hand Records – embraces the beauty of cultural diversity in the U.S. The album has a personal resonance for Lee. A native of Seoul, Korea, she emigrated to the U.S. at the age of seven. During her childhood, playing the violin was a refuge from bullying and racism for Kristin – she moved to the U.S. not speaking any English, and felt the violin became her voice. As a foreign-born citizen of the U.S., Lee was compelled to select repertoire for the album that would express her pride in the country she now calls her own. She has recorded works by American composers including Amy Beach, George Gershwin, Theolonius Monk, Scott Joplin, and more, that have a distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history.

As a soloist, Kristin Lee has appeared with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Hawai’i Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ravinia Festival, the Louvre Museum, the Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery. In 2026, she makes her solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall performing her program American Sketches with pianist John Novacek. An accomplished chamber musician, Kristin Lee is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing regularly in New York at Lincoln Center and on tour. In addition to her prolific performance career, Lee is a devoted educator. She has served on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and she has also been in residence with the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, the El Sistema Chamber Music Festival of Venezuela, and is a summer faculty member at Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute. Lee is also the founding artistic director of Emerald City Music (ECM), a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

Kristin Lee’s honors include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, top prizes in the Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists National Auditions, and awards from the Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation.

Born in Seoul, Lee moved to the United States and studied under prestigious teachers including Sonja Foster, Catherine Cho, Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein, and Itzhak Perlman. Lee holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples, Italy in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul & Linda Gridley.

For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Violinist Kristin Lee, praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy,” will be the featured soloist with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Alexandra Arrieche. Lee will perform Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons. The program, titled Transform, also includes Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss.

Concert details:

Who: Violinist Kristin Lee
Soloist with Olympia Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Rei Hotoda
What: Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons
When: Sunday, March 15, 2026 at 3pm
Where: Capital High School Performing Arts Center 2707 Conger Avenue NW Olympia, WA 98502
Tickets and information: https://www.olympiasymphony.org/march-15-transform

Christopher Jesina 1/30/26 Christopher Jesina 1/30/26

Feb. 27: Violinist Kristin Lee Presented by Arts Quarter Music Series at William and Mary – Performing American Sketches with Pianist John Novacek

Violinist Kristin Lee Presented by Arts Quarter Music Series at William and Mary Performing American Sketches with Pianist John Novacek

L-R Violinist Kristin Lee, PIanist John Novacek
Photo of Lee by Lauren Desberg; Photo of Novacek by Peter Schaaf

Violinist Kristin Lee
Presented by Arts Quarter Music Series at William and Mary
Performing American Sketches with Pianist John Novacek

Friday, February 27, 2026 at 7:30pm
Music Arts Center, Concert Hall | 551 Jamestown Road | Williamsburg, VA
Tickets and More Information

Kristin Lee | John Novacek

Listen to American Sketches

Williamsburg, VA – On Friday, February 27, 2026 at 7:30pm, violinist Kristin Lee – praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy” – will perform her program, American Sketches, with pianist John Novacek, presented by the Arts Quarter Music Series at William and Mary. This performance precedes Lee’s Carnegie Hall recital debut on March 12, 2026, which will also feature Lee and Novacek performing this program, as a part of United in Sound: America at 250, a citywide festival presented by Carnegie Hall.

Lee and Novacek will perform Four Southland Sketches by H.T. Burleigh (1866–1949); Non-Poem 4 by Jonathan Ragonese (b.1989); Sonata No. 2; Violin Sonata No. 1 by Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959); Romance by Amy Beach (1867–1944); Intoxication by John Novacek (b. 1964); But Not For Me (arr. Jeremy Jordan) by George Gershwin (1898–1937); Lament (arr. Jeremy Jordan) by J.J. Johnson (1924–2001); 4th Street Drag by John Novacek; Cockles by John Novacek; The Entertainer (arr. Jeremy Jordan) by Scott Joplin (1868–1917); Air by Kevin Puts (b. 1972); and Full Stride Ahead by John Novacek.

This special program draws from works found on Lee’s debut solo album, American Sketches (First Hand Records). American Sketches has a personal resonance for Lee. A native of Seoul, Korea, she emigrated to the U.S. at the age of seven. During her childhood, playing the violin was a refuge from bullying and racism for Kristin – she moved to the U.S. not speaking any English, and felt the violin became her voice. As a foreign-born citizen of the U.S., Lee was compelled to select this repertoire to express her pride in the country she now calls her own, and has recorded works by American composers that have a distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history.

Of what American Sketches means to her, Kristin Lee says:

“My inspiration for American Sketches lies in the celebration of differences. It is the differences of people, environment, and encounters that ignite our curiosity, fuel our motivation, and inspire our creativity. By accepting and appreciating these differences, we pave the way for changes to our society. Whilst adopting change is difficult for many people, it is a critical component in our ever-evolving world, particularly within the musical communities. The history of American music is a great example of this notion. From the Indigenous sounds of the Native Americans to the influences of Western Europe and Africa, the American sound merged and evolved into what we know as Ragtime, Appalachian Folk, Jazz, and so much more. The variety of musical styles represents the diverse culture of America, showcasing the beauty of individual expression and the celebration of American history.”

San Francisco Classical Voice writes of the album, “Lee sets expectations for the entire album by opening with the ridiculously fast, technically challenging “Intoxication” and ending, just as the title says, “Full Stride Ahead.” In between, she delightfully and charmingly rags and strolls.”

Classics Today writes, “Violin virtuoso Kristin Lee serves up a delightful and stylistically wide-ranging cornucopia of American music, performed with unalloyed joy, style and effortless technique,”

Audiophila describes Lee as a “superb violinist,” writing, “[Kristin Lee] can manipulate that sound to suit the interesting American repertoire.”

In addition to her solo appearances, Kristin Lee tours throughout the world as a member of New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, including in Italy, Croatia, Germany, Taiwan, and across the U.S. Always up for adventure, at the Moab Music Festival in Utah, Lee has performed in such unexpected places as rafting down the Colorado River, in a natural rock grotto, and in the magical landscape of the red rock canyons of the area.

In addition to her prolific performance career, Lee is a devoted educator. She has served on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and she has also been in residence with the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, the El Sistema Chamber Music Festival of Venezuela, and is a summer faculty member at Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute. Lee is also the founding artistic director of Emerald City Music (ECM), a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Violinist Kristin Lee, praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy,” is presented by Arts Quarter Music Series at William and Mary with pianist John Novacek, performing American Sketches –– a concert inspired by Lee’s debut album of the same title, which reflects the distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history, encompassing both Lee’s journey as an American, as well as the journeys of the composers she selected. This performance will include works by H.T. Burleigh, Jonathan Ragonese, Bohuslav Martinů, Amy Beach, John Novacek, George Gershwin, Scott Joplin, Kevin Puts, and J.J. Johnson.

Concert details:

Who: Violinist Kristin Lee & Pianist John Novacek Presented by Arts Quarter Music Series at William and Mary
What: American Sketches
When: Friday, February 27, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Music Arts Center, Concert Hall, 551 Jamestown Road Williamsburg, VA 23185
Tickets and More Information: https://events.wm.edu/event/view/music/367196

Christopher Jesina 1/23/26 Christopher Jesina 1/23/26

Feb. 26: Lisa Bielawa Featured in Composer Portrait Concert at Miller Theatre – Including World Premiere of Balloon Variations

Photo by Shawn Poynter available in hi-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/lisa-bielawa

Lisa Bielawa Featured in Miller Theatre Composer Portrait Concert at Columbia University

Performances by Bielawa with Contemporaneous
Conducted by Co-Artistic Director David Bloom

Featuring the World Premiere of Balloon Variations

Thursday, February 26, 2026 at 7:30pm
Miller Theatre at Columbia University | 2960 Broadway (at 116th Street) | NYC
Tickets and More Information

“the formal sophistication and lyrical richness of Bielawa’s music go deep” – The New Yorker

“a dynamic and innovative composer” – The Boston Globe

Lisa Bielawa: www.lisabielawa.net

New York, NY – On Thursday, February 26, 2026 at 7:30pm, composer and vocalist Lisa Bielawa will be featured in a Composer Portrait at Miller Theatre at Columbia University, with performances of her music by Contemporaneous conducted by Co-Artistic Director David Bloom, and sung by Bielawa herself. The program includes the world premiere of Balloon Variations, commissioned by Miller Theatre for the occasion, as well as two of Bielawa’s earlier works – Incessabili Voce from 2013 and Graffiti dell’amante from 2010.

Lisa Bielawa is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow and a Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition. She takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. Gramophone reports, “Bielawa is gaining gale force as a composer, churning out impeccably groomed works that at once evoke the layered precision of Vermeer and the conscious recklessness of Jackson Pollock.” Her music has been described as “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart,” by The New York Times, and “fluid and arresting ... at once dramatic and probing,” by the San Francisco Chronicle. She is established as one of today’s leading composers and performers, consistently incorporating community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, a bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville, KY, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin and San Francisco, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall; she has composed and produced a twelve-episode, made-for-TV opera that features over 350 musicians and was filmed in locations across the country.

“Creating new work for a fearless and uniquely flexible group like Contemporaneous leads me to find new ways to build wonder between performers and audience, through whimsy and joyful incitement to creating the unexpected,” says Bielawa. “They are game for anything. I can’t wait to see what happens in the room when we invite our audience along on this ride.”

Bielawa’s new piece for her Composer Portrait, Balloon Variations, written for seven instruments, will showcase the unique virtuosity of Contemporaneous and its conductor David Bloom, exploring the meeting ground between comedy and expansiveness. It is a precursor to Bielawa’s full-length opera La Ballonniste – or – Balloon (A Hot Air Opera), which will also be performed by Contemporaneous. La Ballonniste, Bielawa’s Guggenheim Fellowship project, is set in 1784 in Lyon on the cusp of the French Revolution and centers on opera singer Élisabeth Tible, the first woman to fly in a hot air balloon, all while singing an aria from a long-forgotten opera. Bielawa and librettist Claire Solomon are turning this true story into a comic opera. Balloon Variations is Bielawa’s exploration of music in the “dialect” of the new opera, allowing her to develop the musical language of the new work outside of the opera’s story.

Bielawa’s piece Incessabili Voce from 2013 was commissioned by Radio France for Ensemble Variances, with the composer as the vocal soloist. The piece was written in response to the theme of “The Cry” as “an expression of a basic language shared by all human beings as well as a majority of animals.” Bielawa writes in her note for the piece, “In designing material for the voice, I thought about singing in church, the ecstatic singing of angels, the roar of soldiers, the mannerisms of Greek storytelling in the great oral tradition, the traditions of Gregorian and Anglican chant. The vocal part coaxes cries of various sorts out of the instruments. The texture of the ensemble writing bears witness to my preoccupation . . .with the sloppy joyfulness of a multitude crying ceaselessly all together – whether angels or soldiers. I let all of these images, texts, traditions and energies enter the piece and mingle together, without strict dramatic intent. It is more of a dreamscape than a story, more cry than word.”

Graffiti dell’amante for string quartet and singer from 2010 was commissioned for Lisa Bielawa to perform with Brooklyn Rider, by Market Square Concerts and the American Academy in Rome during Bielawa’s Rome Prize year. It is an open-ended musical-dramatic exploration of the multi-faceted predicament of the Lover inspired by Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. Bielawa writes, “The piece uses various declarations of romantic Love from my own meandering reading to enact what Barthes calls the ‘Figures’ of the Lover (I call these figures/segments ‘Absence,’ ‘Devotion,’ ‘Ravishment,’ ‘Remembering,’ etc.) These 3-5 minute segments can be performed in any order, or in subsets to make performances of different lengths – always chosen by the audience assembled for that performance. In this way each audience hears its own collective romantic consciousness reflected back through the performance.”

On singing these pieces again after so long Bielawa says, “Working up these two virtuoso vocal works so many years later than when I first sang them, I am astounded by how much more dramatic range I am able to get from my own voice, now that I have gone through menopause and my voice has gained a whole new set of colors and powers. As I bring this wonderfully strange new instrument to these familiar works, I am also struck by how my understanding of the texts has evolved because of my own lived experience over these years. It is unlike any other experience I’ve had as a performer or a composer.”

In addition to her Composer Portrait at Miller Theatre, Lisa Bielawa’s 2025-2026 season features bold programming, new collaborations, and world premieres of several new works. Knoxville Broadcast, a new installment in Bielawa’s Broadcast series, was premiered on October 17 and 18, 2025 in Knoxville, TN in three site-specific performances at Knoxville’s World’s Fair Park presented by Big Ears. Violinist Tessa Lark has given the first two premiere performances of Bielawa’s Violin Concerto No. 2, PULSE with two of the co-commissioning orchestras – the world premiere performances with the Louisville Orchestra, conducted by Teddy Abrams on October 24 and 25, 2025; and the Cincinnati premiere with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Cristian Mӑcelaru, on November 29 and 30, 2025. She will perform it with another co-commissioner, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project on April 19, 2026. Bielawa also serves as Howard Hanson Visiting Professor at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY for 2025-2026, where she will work with students who will be performing her music throughout the academic year. Eastman will present her next large-scale Broadcast in April 2026.

More about Lisa Bielawa: Lisa Bielawa is the recipient of the Music Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, an OPERA America Grant for Female Composers, a 2025 commission from The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, and is a 2025 New Music USA Amplifying Voices composer. She was named a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2018 and was Artist-in-Residence at Kaufman Music Center in New York for the 2020-2021 season. During the 2022-23 season, she was a member of the inaugural Louisville Orchestra’s Creators Corps. Her music is frequently performed throughout the U.S. and abroad. Her work has recently been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, Town Hall Seattle, Naumburg Orchestral Concerts Summer Series in New York’s Central Park, National Sawdust, Le Poisson Rouge, Rouen Opera, Helsinki Music Center, Arsenal de Metz, Japan Society, and MAXXI Museum in Rome, among others. Orchestras that have championed her music include the Louisville Orchestra, The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, American Composers Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the Orlando Philharmonic; she has also written for the combined forces of The Knights, San Francisco Girls Chorus, and Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by leading ensembles and organizations including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Big Ears, Miami String Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, American Guild of Organists, American Pianists Association, California Music Center, Akademiska Sångföreningen (Helsinki), Paul Dresher Ensemble, SOLI Chamber Ensemble, the Washington and PRISM Saxophone Quartets, Ensemble Variances (commissioned by Radio France), and more. Bielawa’s music has been recorded on the Tzadik, Orange Mountain, Supertrain, Cedille, TROY, Innova, BMOP/sound, and Sono Luminus labels.

Christopher Jesina 1/23/26 Christopher Jesina 1/23/26

Feb. 13: Superstar Cellist HAUSER Revisits The Magic of Great Classical Melodies with The Swan – New Album on Sony Masterworks

International cello sensation HAUSER adds a grace note to his global hits Classic and Classic II, with the release of The Swan, a new “musical love letter” to his instrument. The new musical collection features seven beautiful classical melodies transformed by the HAUSER’s deeply felt signature style and virtuosity, once again with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ziegler. Available for pre-save now, The Swan is set for release on February 13, 2026 via Sony Masterworks on all digital music platforms.

Accompanying today’s news is the release of the title track and music video for The Swan, starring Italian prima ballerina Angelica Gismondo – watch here.

The Swan – a gentle, rapturous melody from Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals – is an obvious choice for HAUSER. The piece has a profound, personal meaning to him.

“I was just a few years old when I heard a cello on the radio for the first time, playing Saint-Saëns’ ‘The Swan’,” HAUSER recalls. “I just fell in love with the sound when I heard it. It was like… I can’t describe it. It’s not usual for a child to know what he wants at an early age. But that was the sound. I remember thinking, ‘That’s it.’”

The Swan also includes all-new arrangements of two favorites by the French composer Gabriel Fauré – Après un rêve (After a Dream) and the lightly dancing Pavane; perhaps Puccini’s most beloved aria, O mio babbino caro from the opera Gianni Schicchi, popularized on the soundtrack the classic film A Room with a View; a worldwide hit from over a century ago, Sir Edward Elgar’s charming Salut d’amour (Love’s Greeting); and the robust, instantly recognizable zest of Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5.

HAUSER tops off this musical bouquet with a new take on the soaring pop anthem You Raise Me Up, best known in Josh Groban’s chart-topping recording.

Though Saint-Saëns’ The Swan was written for the cello, the other selections on The Swan were written for voice, various other instruments or the orchestra. Like the selections on Classic and Classic II, they reflect HAUSER’s passion for taking the most expressive and unforgettable melodies, and adapting them to showcase the warm, singing tone of the cello.

HAUSER – THE SWAN
RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 13, 2026

OFFICIAL TRACKLIST –

1. The Swan
2. Après un rêve
3. Pavane
4. mio babbino caro
5. Salut d'Amour
6. Hungarian Dance No. 5
7. You Raise Me Up

ABOUT HAUSER

Following an incredible 10-year run as half of 2CELLOS, global superstar HAUSER has ushered in a new era as a solo artist and visual concept creator, using his innovative musical skills and irresistible charisma to bring a new wave of cello music to fans everywhere. Making his solo debut in 2020 with the release of CLASSIC, followed by The Player (2022), HAUSER CHRISTMAS (2023), CLASSIC II (2024) and CINEMA (2025), HAUSER has amassed over 2 billion audio streams and 4 billion video views globally. Revered globally for his captivating live performance, the Croatian musician is a phenomenon that thrives on audience interaction, hitting the stage in over 40 countries across the globe including historic venues like New York City’s Radio City Music Hall and London’s Royal Albert Hall and performing alongside such wide-ranging acts as Andrea Bocelli, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Elton John, as well as adored by Céline Dion. His electric stage presence has also led to several high-profile appearances, including an opening night performance at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, performing at the Vatican for the Pope, and special features for both the NFL and UEFA. Named one of People Magazine’s 2022 Sexiest Men Alive and featured by the likes of Rolling Stone, Forbes, and The New York Times, HAUSER has graced the stage for numerous broadcast performances, most recently adding Love Island to a long resume of appearances that includes The Bachelorette, TODAY Show, Good Morning America, Ellen, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CNN en Español and more. In 2025, HAUSER launched “Music Unites the World” on his social media -- a passion project where he will record an iconic song from each nation around the globe to spread a message of unity through music.

Connect With Hauser:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok

# # #

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/

Christopher Jesina 1/23/26 Christopher Jesina 1/23/26

Feb 8 & 22: Claremont Trio and Attacca Quartet Perform at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

L-R: Claremont Trio by Merri Cyr; Attacca Quartet by David Goddard. Press photos available here.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Presents the Claremont Trio & Attacca Quartet in February

Concerts Include Rarely Heard Music by French Composer Louise Farrenc and a Boston Premiere by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composer David Lang Co-Commissioned by the Gardner Museum

Claremont Trio: Sunday, February 8, 2026 at 1:30 pm
Attacca Quartet: Sunday, February 22, 2026 at 1:30 pm

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum | Calderwood Hall
25 Evans Way | Boston, MA
Tickets: www.gardnermuseum.org/about/music

For press tickets, please contact Christina Jensen at christina@jensenartists.com

BOSTON, MA – The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum continues its Winter/Spring 2026 Weekend Concert Series, presenting the Claremont Trio on Sunday, February 8, 2026 at 1:30 pm and the Attacca Quartet on Sunday, February 22, 2026 at 1:30pm. This fifteen-concert season curated by Abrams Curator of Music George Steel runs from January 25 through May 17, 2026, and features world-class artists in the Museum’s extraordinary Calderwood Hall—a 300-seat “sonic cube” with three levels of balconies designed so that 80% of seats are front row, creating a uniquely intense and intentional listening experience.

Lauded as “one of America’s finest young chamber groups” by The Strad Magazine, the Claremont Trio (violinist Emily Bruskin, cellist Julia Bruskin, and pianist Sophiko Simsive) is sought after for its thrillingly virtuosic and richly communicative performances. The ensemble has a long history of performing at the Gardner Museum, which presented the Trio’s Boston debut over 25 years ago.

Emily Bruskin says, “Two visionary curators of music at the Gardner Museum—Scott Nickrenz and George Steel—have made this series feel like a second home for us, having presented our Boston debut; our Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann trio cycles; world premieres by Gabriela Lena Frank, Sean Shepherd, Helen Grime, and Juantio Becenti; underappreciated masterpieces by Charlotte Sohy, Cecile Chaminade, Rebecca Clarke, and Louise Farrenc; and so much more.”

For this concert, the Trio will be joined by violist Rosemary Nelis and bassist Bradley Aikman in a performance of 19th-century French composer Louise Farrenc’s Piano Quintet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 30. Farrenc, whose music is only now receiving the attention it deserves, was a formidable pianist and composer whose piano quintet stands alongside the finest chamber works of her era. The trio will also take on Ravel’s luscious piano trio and Shulamit Ran’s yearning Soliloquy, which grew out of her work on an operatic adaptation of The Dybbuk by S. An-sky.

The two-time Grammy Award-winning Attacca Quartet is recognized and acclaimed as one of the most versatile and outstanding ensembles of the moment—a true quartet for modern times. Their repertoire spans from Haydn and Beethoven to Caroline Shaw and electronic music. Recent highlights include performances at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Ojai Festival, Big Ears Festival, and much more. The Attacca returns to the Gardner Museum with Bartók’s pungent fourth quartet, which mixes Hungarian folk music and modernism with foot-stomping ferocity. Mendelssohn’s Apollonian musicianship will be on display in his elegant String Quartet in E minor.

The Attacca Quartet will also give the Boston premiere of daisy, a Museum-commissioned work by Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Lang, who created his “in-ear opera” true pearl for the Gardner Museum’s Tapestry Room in 2018. Lang explains that daisy is inspired by an advertisement from the Vietnam War era. He writes, “[Lyndon Baines Johnson's] campaign included what many consider the most effective political ad in American history—it featured an innocent young girl plucking the petals off a flower, who is then interrupted by the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. The name of the ad was 'Daisy.' My quartet daisy remembers this moment in American history, and it proposes two different futures for the innocent. The opening movement—‘first daisy’—begins in a gentle openness that is soon forgotten, and taken for granted, and which then becomes relentlessly overwhelmed. The concluding movement—‘second daisy’— imagines what might happen if that gentle and open spirit could be believed, and valued, and supported, and preserved.” daisy was co-commissioned by an international group of presenters: La Biennale di Venezia, Kings Place, Newport Classical, String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam, Park Avenue Armory, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

George Steel’s music programming for the Museum continues founder and legendary arts patron Isabella Stewart Gardner’s vision of bringing together musicians and audiences for inspiring gatherings. Dating to 1927, the Gardner’s Weekend Concert Series is the longest running museum music program in the country. Much like Isabella Stewart Gardner did in her time, Steel champions unknown repertoire and embraces new works, creates connections and builds community among musicians, and supports them by presenting them in new endeavors and collaborations. His programming also frequently draws on the history of the Gardner Museum, featuring instruments from the Museum’s collection and music by composers who were associated with its founder. In honoring Isabella Stewart Gardner’s musical legacy, Music at the Gardner remains strongly committed to broadening the repertoire of music presented to include previously overlooked and marginalized composers as well as performers of all backgrounds.

Winter/Spring 2026 At-a-Glance Concert Schedule

January 25: Twelfth Night Ensemble

February 1: Romuald Grimbert-Barré, violin; Tommy Mesa, cello; Albert Cano Smit, piano

February 8: Claremont Trio

February 22: Attacca Quartet

February 26: Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians performed by Ensemble Signal - Thursday Night Music

March 1: Goldmund Quartet with Gloria Chien, piano

March 8: Hopkinson Smith, lute

March 15: Borromeo String Quartet

March 29: Castle of Our Skins with Daniel Bernard Roumain, electric violin and Val-Inc, sound chemist

April 5: Paul Galbraith, guitar

April 12: Randall Goosby, violin with Zhu Wang, piano

April 18: Boston Children’s Chorus: The Road She Paved

April 19: Imani Winds

April 26: Diderot String Quartet

May 10: Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano

May 17: Renaissance String Quartet

All concerts take place on Sundays at 1:30 pm, except for Ensemble Signal which performs on Thursday, February 26 at 7 pm and the Boston Children’s Chorus which performs on Saturday, April 18 at 2 pm. All concerts take place in Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (25 Evans Way, Boston, MA).

Ticketing Information

Tickets are available at gardnermuseum.org/about/music or by calling the Box Office at 617 278 5156. For additional information including about accessibility, please contact boxoffice@isgm.org.

About the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum invites you to escape the ordinary in a magical setting where art and community come together to inspire new ways of envisioning our world. Embodying the fearless legacy of its founder, the Museum offers a singular invitation to explore the past through a contemporary lens, creating meaningful encounters with art and joyful connections for all. Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, unforgettable galleries surround a luminous Courtyard and are home to masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Whistler, and Sargent. The Renzo Piano Wing provides a platform for contemporary artists, musicians, and scholars and serves as an innovative venue where creativity is celebrated in all of its forms.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • 25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115 • Hours: Open Weekends from 10 am to 5 pm, Weekdays from 11am to 5 pm and Thursdays until 9 pm. Closed Tuesdays. • Admission: Adults $22; Seniors $20; Students $15; Free for members, children under 18, everyone on their birthday, and all named “Isabella” • $2 off admission with a same-day Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ticket • For information 617 566 1401 • Box Office 617 278 5156 • www.gardnermuseum.org

Music at the Gardner is supported by Manitou Fund. The Museum thanks its generous concert donors: The Coogan Concert in memory of Peter Weston Coogan; Fitzpatrick Family Concert; James Lawrence Memorial Concert; Alford P. Rudnick Memorial Concert; David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder; Wendy Shattuck Young Artist Concert; and Willona Sinclair Memorial Concert. The piano is dedicated as the Alex d’Arbeloff Steinway. The harpsichord was generously donated by Dr. Robert Barstow in memory of Marion Huse, and its care is endowed in memory of Dr. Barstow by The Barstow Fund. Music at the Gardner is also supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Nicie and Jay Panetta, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Feb 19-21: Silence and Sound - Arvo Pärt’s Music for Strings - Performed by Experiential Orchestra at Cathedral of St. John the Divine

James Blachly and EXO at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, photo by Allison Stock.
Photo of Arvo Pärt by Kaupo Kikkas. Press photos available in high resolution here.

GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) Continues 2025-2026 Season

James Blachly, Music Director

Silence and Sound: Arvo Pärt’s Music for Strings
Featuring the US Premieres of Pärt’s Sequentia and Für Lennart in memoriam
February 19-21, 2026

Thursday & Friday, February 19 & 20, 2026 at 7:30pm
Saturday, February 21, 2026 at 3:30pm

Cathedral of St. John the Divine, St. James Chapel
1047 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY
Tickets & Information

New York, NY – The GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) continues its 2025-2026 season, titled Origins, running from November 2025 through May 2026. Led by founding Music Director James Blachly, EXO presents four immersive programs this season, each reflecting the origins and mission of the organization – to curate programs that embrace the unique acoustics and characters of each venue, creating a one-of-a-kind listening environment and a new experience of sound. In three performances on Thursday, February 19 and Friday, February 20 at 7:30pm, and on Saturday, February 21 at 3:30pm, EXO and Blachly present Silence and Sound: Arvo Pärt’s Music for Strings at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in the intimate St. James Chapel (1047 Amsterdam Ave., NYC), joining the worldwide celebration of the iconic Estonian composer’s 90th birthday season. EXO will welcome to these performances Michael Pärt, Arvo Pärt's son and co-founder of the Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia. Peter Bouteneff, author of Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence, has served as an advisor for these concerts on the Orthodox traditions that underpin several of the works to be performed.

Blachly and EXO bring their deep connection to the music of Pärt, building on their capacity concerts of his music at The Metropolitan Museum’s Temple of Dendur in 2021 and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 2023. This season, EXO invites listeners to explore the unique acoustics of the largest chapel of the Cathedral, where each note will reflect and reverberate – a meditation in stone, wood, and silence, as well as sound and space.

Blachly has carefully curated this program of music for strings and percussion, which includes some of Pärt’s most beloved works – Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten and Vater Unser – as well as the US premieres of his Pärt’s Sequentia and Für Lennart in memoriam. Pärt composed Sequentia in 2014 for the production Adam’s Passion and dedicated the work to Robert Wilson. The program will also include Pärt’s Orient & Occident, Psalom, Silouan’s Song, and Da pacem Domine. Pärt's setting of the Lord's Prayer, Vater Unser, will be sung by mezzo soprano Meg Bragle, a leading interpreter of Baroque and Classical repertoire hailed for her “memorable, raw-silk voice” (Toronto Star). Orient & Occident was composed in 2000, and is based on the text of Credo, the Nicene Creed in the Church Slavonic language – one of the few religious texts that are the same in the Western and Eastern Church.

Blachly says, “I chose Sequentia for this program because of the extraordinarily delicate way the percussion interacts with both the strings and silence, and how those sonorities will ring in this space.”

Also this season, on April 10 and 11, 2026, in partnership with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, EXO presents Music in the Crypt: Out of the Shadows in the rarely accessible Crypt at the Cathedral, featuring music chosen especially for this mysterious and shadowy space. The final event of the season is a reprise of EXO’s celebrated collaboration with composer Brad Balliett in his A Field Guide to Imaginary Birds, to be held once again outdoors in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on June 6, 2026.

About Experiential Orchestra:

The GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) brings audiences close to the music by engaging listeners through imaginative, immersive, and interactive concert experiences. Founded by Music Director James Blachly in 2009, EXO’s performances and recordings have been described as “strikingly persuasive” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “immaculate” by Musical America, and have been praised for having “luscious tone and poise” by Classics Today.

EXO was founded on collaboration and co-creation, and each curated performance is imbued with a generous spirit of celebration, facilitating the exploration of what Blachly calls, “a new experience of sound” by audiences. The orchestra’s performances take place in and outside the concert hall with audiences invited to participate in unorthodox ways. EXO has performed the music of Arvo Pärt in the Temple of Dendur at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, invited audiences to dance during Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at National Sawdust, enveloped the audience in concerts at Lincoln Center with audience and orchestra members sitting together, and presented  Symphonie fantastique and Petrushka with circus choreography at The Muse in Brooklyn.  

Recent highlights have included a subscription concert at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, an immersive performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs with cellist Andrew Yee and soprano Sarah Brailey, and the New York premiere of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with soloist Curtis Stewart. In January 2024, EXO performed Pärt’s masterwork Passio at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, offering audiences the opportunity to experience the concert while reclining on yoga mats. In March 2024, the orchestra co-presented a four-day Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York, coinciding with Perry’s 100th birthday that month.

EXO is known for imaginative and groundbreaking programming that frequently advocates for under-celebrated masterpieces and composers. The orchestra’s world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison (1930) was released on Chandos Records in 2020 to international critical acclaim in The New York Times, Gramophone, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and many other publications. The album won the GRAMMY for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2021 – the first GRAMMY ever awarded for Smyth’s music. EXO’s world premiere recording of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Curtis Stewart, was released on the Bright Shiny Things label in March 2024 and earned two GRAMMY nominations.

EXO is led by Founder and Music Director James Blachly, General Manager Sandy Choi, Creative Partner Catherine Gregory, Concertmasters Alex Fortes and Henry Wang, Personnel Manager Arthur Sato, and Artistic Advisors Patrick Castillo, Brad Balliett, and Doug Balliett. Leila Amineddoleh serves as Board Chair.

About Founding Music Director James Blachly:

James Blachly is a GRAMMY®-winning conductor dedicated to enriching the concert experience by connecting with audiences in memorable and meaningful ways. James Blachly serves as Music Director of Experiential Orchestra and Johnstown Symphony Orchestra. He is a versatile guest conductor in diverse repertoire for orchestras including New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and WDR Funkhausorchester. A strong supporter of composers of our time, Blachly has commissioned and premiered more than 40 works by composers including Jessie Montgomery, Courtney Bryan, Viet Cuong, Michi Wiancko, Kate Copeland Ettinger, Tommy Daugherty, Patrick Castillo, Brad and Doug Balliett, and many others. In recent seasons, he has collaborated with soloists Daniel Hope, Paul Jacobs, Julia Bullock, Dashon Burton, Michelle Cann, Andrew Yee, Curtis Stewart, Simone Porter, and more. In addition to his work with Experiential Orchestra, with the Johnstown Symphony, Blachly has conducted the orchestra at the Flight 93 Memorial for the 20th Anniversary of 9/11, in a former steel mill in a concert that was featured on Katie Couric’s America Inside Out, at the First Summit Arena at the War Memorial, and in eight seasons the orchestra has increased season ticket sales and annual giving each by more than 50%. In 2021, he received a commendation by the City of Johnstown and the Johnstown chapter of the NAACP. In recent seasons, Blachly has introduced an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, and youth concert. For more information, visit www.jamesblachly.com.

Christopher Jesina 1/23/26 Christopher Jesina 1/23/26

Feb. 24: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Numerica Performing Arts Center – Featuring the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven and George Rochberg

Feb. 24: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Numerica Performing Arts Center

Available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet

Telegraph Quartet Presented by Numerica Performing Arts Center
Featuring the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven and George Rochberg

Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 7:30pm
Numerica Performing Arts Center | 123 N Wenatchee Ave. | Wenatchee, WA
Tickets and More Information

Telegraph Quartet’s New Album
20th Century Vantage Points Vol. 2: Edge of the Storm Out Now

“soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail …[the Telegraph Quartet is] an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape.” – San Francisco Chronicle

www.TelegraphQuartet.com

Wenatchee, WA – On Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 7:30pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group The Strad describes as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” is presented in concert by the Numerica Performing Arts Center (123 N. Wenatchee Ave). .

Known for technical prowess and an appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet brings its fluid synchronicity and refined artistry to a program that embraces a sense of homage to those who inspired the works, featuring George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1.

Of the program, the Telegraph Quartet says,

“With both of these quartets by Beethoven and Rochberg, we find each composer in a moment of their lives that could have broken them, only to have those events push them into deeper and broader realms of expression. First we have Beethoven, several years in the wake of his Heiligenstadt Testament, where his acceptance of his inescapable deafness galvanizes him to write works like his Op. 59 No. 1, one of three quartets that truly broke the bonds of a typical chamberwork in its length, complexity and orchestral scope. Then, more than a century-and-a-half later, we have George Rochberg, also in the wake of a personal tragedy - the premature death of his teenage son - turning back to that very music of Beethoven, Mahler and others before him to inspire this epic third quartet, one that diverges completely from his serialist beginnings and allows him the emotional breadth to express this loss.”

The Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

In August 2023, the Telegraph Quartet released 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, the first in a trilogy of recordings on Azica Records exploring the string quartets of the first half of the 20th century – an era of music that the group has felt especially called to perform since its formation. Divergent Paths features two works that (to the best of the Quartet’s knowledge) have never been recorded on the same album before: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7. The Quartet’s new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Edge of the Storm is out now on Azica Records. Read the press release online here. This second volume of the trilogy examines music from the turbulent war years of 1941-1951 and features a thoughtfully curated program of works by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg.

More about Telegraph Quartet: The Quartet has performed in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions across the United States and abroad, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. The Quartet is currently the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan.

Notable collaborations include projects with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; and the St. Lawrence Quartet and Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger.

Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg expert Henk Guittart in conjunction with the Arnold Schoenberg Center, researching all of Schoenberg's string quartets.

For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Concert details:

Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Numerica Performing Arts Center
What: Music by Ludwig van Beethoven and George Rochberg
When: Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Numerica Performing Arts Center 123 N Wenatchee Ave. Wenatchee, WA 98801
Tickets and information: numericapac.org/events/the-telegraph-quartet

Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group The Strad describes as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” performs a lively concert featuring Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 59 No. 1 and George Rochberg String Quartet No. 3.

Christopher Jesina 1/23/26 Christopher Jesina 1/23/26

Feb. 18: Jupiter String Quartet Presented by Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City – Performing the Music of Robert Schumann, Alberto Ginastera, and Ludwig van Beethoven

Feb. 18: Jupiter String Quartet Presented by Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City

Photo of the Jupiter Quartet by Todd Rosenberg available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/jupiter-string

Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City

Performing the Music of Robert Schumann, Alberto Ginastera, and Ludwig van Beethoven

Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Libby Gardner Concert Hall at University of Utah
1375 Presidents' Circle | Salt Lake City, UT
Tickets and More Information

“an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” – The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com

Salt Lake City, UT – On Wednesday, February 18, 2026, at 7:30 pm, the internationally acclaimed Jupiter String Quartet, winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and Banff International String Quartet Competition – known for their “compelling” performances (BBC Music Magazine) – will be presented by the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City. The concert will take place in Libby Gardner Concert Hall at the University of Utah (1375 Presidents' Circle). Jupiter presents Revival, taking listeners on an emotional ride filled with the vibrant rhythms of folk dance as well as beautiful lyricism. The concert will include Robert Schumann’s Quartet in A minor, Op. 41 No. 1; Alberto Ginastera’s Quartet No. 1, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1.

Based in Urbana, IL and giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, and includes violinist Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law), and first violinist, Mélanie Clapiès. The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four.

Since forming in 2001, the Jupiter String Quartet has turned their unique family dynamic into a musical strength. The personal connections that bind them – sisters who grew up making music together, a marriage that deepened musical partnership – create an intuitive ensemble communication that audiences consistently notice. Their performances exude an energy that feels friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, bringing their close-knit musical relationships to the stage.

”We are so pleased to return to Salt Lake City to perform for the wonderful audience there,” says the Jupiter Quartet. “We are especially excited about this vivid program, which features Schumann’s lushly beautiful Quartet in A minor, Beethoven’s heroic quartet Op. 59 No. 1, and Ginastera’s vivacious first quartet. We look forward to sharing these fantastic works.”

Robert Schumann composed all three of his string quartets in a burst of creative energy, and this first of the series is a brilliant exploration of the genre, featuring creative counterpoint, driving rhythms, and heartbreaking reflection. Alberto Ginastera’s scintillating first quartet is based on the folk traditions of Argentina. The program concludes with Beethoven’s monumental Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1, an astonishing experiment in expanding the form of the string quartet to its limits. The work reaches its emotional height in the sublime slow movement, whose spell is broken by the energetically rustic dance of the final movement, based on a Russian folk tune.

More about the Jupiter Quartet: The Jupiter Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Taos School of Music Summer Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Music Festival, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program. 

Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two. 

The quartet's latest album is a collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics, 2021), produced by Grammy-winner Judith Sherman. This collaborative album features the world premiere recording of Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath, Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, Op. 20, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round. The quartet’s discography also includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon. 

The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four. 

For more information, visit www.jupiterquartet.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” (The New Yorker) is presented in concert by the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City. The Jupiter Quartet will perform a program centered on the rich and expressive rhythms of folk dance and beautifully intimate lyricism. Titled Revival, this program highlights the influence of many different cultures on the character and complexity of various quartets written by three different composers. The performance will include works by Robert Schumann, Alberto Ginastera, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City
What: Music by Robert Schumann, Alberto Ginastera, and Ludwig van Beethoven
When: Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Where: 1375 Presidents' Circle | Salt Lake City, UT 84112
Tickets and More Information: https://cmsofslc.org/calendar/2026/jupiter-quartet

Christopher Jesina 1/23/26 Christopher Jesina 1/23/26

March 12: Violinist Kristin Lee Makes Weill Recital Hall Debut at Carnegie Hall for United in Sound: America at 250 – Performing Works from American Sketches with Pianist John Novacek

Violinist Kristin Lee Makes Her Weill Recital Hall Debut at Carnegie Hall
Performing Works from Acclaimed Album American Sketches
with Pianist John Novacek

Presented by Carnegie Hall
as part of its United in Sound: America at 250 Festival

Thursday, March 12, 2026 at 7:30pm
Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall | 154 West 57th Street | NYC
Tickets: www.carnegiehall.org, 212.247.7800,
or the Carnegie Hall Box Office
Tickets and More Information

Kristin Lee | John Novacek

Listen to American Sketches

New York, NY– On Thursday, March 12, 2026 at 7:30pm, violinist Kristin Lee – praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy” – will make her Weill Recital Hall debut at Carnegie Hall with pianist John Novacek. The performance is part of United in Sound: America at 250, the citywide festival presented by Carnegie Hall showcasing the extraordinary musical riches that have evolved and flourished in the U.S. throughout the country’s history. Lee and Novacek will perform Four Southland Sketches by H.T. Burleigh (1866–1949); Non-Poem 4 by Jonathan Ragonese (b.1989); Violin Sonata No. 1 by Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959); Romance by Amy Beach (1867–1944); Four Rags by John Novacek (b. 1964); But Not For Me (arr. Jeremy Jordan) by George Gershwin (1898–1937); Lament (arr. Jeremy Jordan) by J.J. Johnson (1924–2001); The Entertainer by Scott Joplin (arr. Jeremy Jordan); Air No. 4 from Four Airs by Kevin Puts.

Kristin Lee will perform a special program that draws from works found on her debut solo album, American Sketches (First Hand Records). American Sketches has a personal resonance for Lee. A native of Seoul, Korea, she emigrated to the U.S. at the age of seven. During her childhood, playing the violin was a refuge from bullying and racism for Kristin – she moved to the U.S. not speaking any English, and felt the violin became her voice. As a foreign-born citizen of the U.S., Lee was compelled to select this repertoire to express her pride in the country she now calls her own, and has recorded works by American composers that have a distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history.

Of what American Sketches means to her, Kristin Lee says:

Audiophila describes Lee as a “superb violinist,” writing, “[Kristin Lee] can manipulate that sound to suit the interesting American repertoire.”

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Violinist Kristin Lee, praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy,” will make her Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall debut with pianist John Novacek, performing a concert inspired by Lee’s debut album, American Sketches, which reflects the distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history, encompassing both Lee’s journey as an American, as well as the journeys of the composers she selected. This performance, which is part of Carnegie Hall’s United in Sound: America at 250 festival, will include works by H.T. Burleigh, Jonathan Ragonese, Bohuslav Martinů, Amy Beach, John Novacek, Scott Joplin, George Gershwin, and J.J. Johnson.

Concert details:

Who: Violinist Kristin Lee & Pianist John Novacek Presented by Carnegie Hall as part of United in Sound: America at 250 Festival
What: Music from Lee’s Debut Solo Album American Sketches
When: Thursday, March 12, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019
Tickets and More Information: www.carnegiehall.org/calendar/2026/03/12/kristin-lee-violin-john-novacek-piano-0730pm

Christopher Jesina 1/23/26 Christopher Jesina 1/23/26

March 13: Countertenor Randall Scotting Releases New Album Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage - Includes Nine Works Recorded for the First Time

Countertenor Randall Scotting Announces New Album

Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage

Celebrating the Legendary 18th-Century Castrato
Through Rarely Heard Baroque Repertoire
Including Nine Works Recorded for the First Time

Release Date: March 13, 2026
Signum Classics

www.randallscotting.com | www.signumrecords.com/product/divine-impresario

Review CDs and downloads available upon request.

Internationally acclaimed countertenor Randall Scotting announces the release of Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage, out March 13, 2026 on Signum Classics. The landmark album celebrates Nicolò Grimaldi, the castrato who conquered the opera world under the stage name Nicolini (1673 - 1732). Recorded with the Academy of Ancient Music under the direction of Laurence Cummings, with soprano Mary Bevan, the album features rarely performed arias and duets from the early 18th century, nine of which have never been recorded before and have not been heard since Nicolini's lifetime.

While Nicolini is best remembered today for the music Handel wrote for him, including beloved arias from Rinaldo and Amadigi, this album reveals his far broader musical world. For Divine Impresario, Scotting has revived works by a range of composers who wrote for this castrato, drawn to his dramatic range and vocal brilliance, including Francesco Gasparini, Nicola Porpora, Riccardo Broschi, Francesco Mancini, Attilio Ariosti, and Giovanni Antonio Giaj.

Divine Impresario takes its title from Nicolini's unique role as both performer and visionary. “When I think about Nicolò Grimaldi, the word that comes to mind is impresario,” explains Scotting. “Not in the limited sense of a theatre manager, but rather as a creative force who shaped the artform itself. Nicolini wasn't content just to stand and sing; he directed performances, he reworked libretti, and he elevated the standard of acting in opera.”

For Scotting, this project marries his onstage and offstage roles. Sought-after by some of the world's most esteemed opera houses and concert halls, the countertenor’s performances have been described as “expressive” (The New York Times), “rich-toned” (Musical America), “luminous” (Ópera Actual), “ravishing” (BBC Music Magazine), and “flexible and rich” (Early Music Review). His breakout moment came in 2019 at London's Royal Ballet & Opera when he stepped in last-minute for Sir David McVicar's production of Britten's Death in Venice, praised for “singing brilliantly” to sold-out audiences, after which he joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera. In 2023, he created the role of Adone in the world premiere of Venere e Adone at the Staatsoper Hamburg under Kent Nagano, earning praise for a “vocally and physically muscular” performance. He has previously worked with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Santa Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, Italy's Spoleto Festival, Boston Baroque, and Sydney's Pinchgut Opera, among others. He recently made spectacular debuts at the Royal Ballet & Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Staatsoper Hamburg, with upcoming debuts at Carnegie Hall and La Fenice in Venice.

Holding a PhD from the Royal College of Music in London, where his dissertation focused on the castrato Senesino and early 18th-century Italian opera, Scotting is also that rare performer who has trained extensively as a scholar – a background that served him well in researching and bringing to life the repertoire he performs here.

After extensive research into Nicolini’s performing career, Scotting sought out manuscripts from archives in England, Belgium, Austria, Germany, and Sweden. Choosing the best of what he found, he then meticulously created modern performing editions for all the music on the album so that it could be performed and recorded.

“For me, stepping into this repertoire is a kind of conversation across time, with Nicolini, but also with the idea of what it means to be an impresario today,” says Scotting. “Like him, I'm drawn to music-making that is dramatically committed. In recording this music, I sought to channel the intensity for which Nicolini was famous and to honor his legacy as the divine impresario: defined by an ambition for opera to be more than just dazzling technique, but also a captivating and emotional experience.”

Born into a poor Neapolitan family in 1673, Nicolò Grimaldi rose to become one of the most celebrated performers of his era. After making his stage debut in Naples at only twelve years old, he rapidly gained fame throughout Italy, eventually being inducted into the Order of Saint Mark’s Cross in Venice in 1705 for his outstanding performances. His reputation soon spread across Europe, and in 1708 he arrived in London with a three-year contract and an extraordinary £1,000 salary (an amount that at that time would have taken a skilled tradesman thirty years to earn).

Nicolini quickly became an international superstar, praised not only for his vocal brilliance but for his exceptional acting. One of the album's highlights is “Mostro crudel che fai?” from Riccardo Broschi's Idaspe, representing the famed lion-fighting scene that electrified London audiences. In Mancini's Idaspe fedele, Nicolini became notorious for slaying a “live” lion onstage in a nude-colored costume – a theatrical spectacle that became one of early 18th-century London's most talked-about moments. The album also includes the delicate and lyrical aria “È vano ogni pensiero” from Mancini's setting of the opera, revealing how Nicolini could, as Scotting puts it in his liner note for the album, “wrestle monsters and still sing with incomparable elegance.”

More about Randall Scotting:

Dramatically persuasive and intensely musical, Randall Scotting is recognized for winning over audiences with his vocal beauty, stylish singing, and charismatic stage presence. He has released several solo albums in recent years, building a growing profile as a recording artist. For his debut album, The Crown, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment led by Laurence Cummings, he was lauded for "ravishing vocalism" and "impressive beauty and warmth." Signum Classics then released Lovesick, an album of lute and folk songs featuring Scotting and Grammy-award winner and lutenist Stephen Stubbs, widely praised and noted as "not only beautifully sung, but 'lived'." His most recent album, Infinite Refrain, with London's Academy of Ancient Music, offers 17th-century arias and love duets for countertenor and tenor, receiving glowing acclaim as "a vibrantly seductive" and "strikingly beautiful declaration of same-sex love."

Remarkable for the breadth of his artistic curiosity, Scotting delights in defying expectations, from improvising live with Bobby McFerrin at Carnegie Hall to performing with the avant-garde cabaret troupe Company XIV in a blend of opera, folk, and pop music. Trained at London's Royal College of Music, the Juilliard School, and as a Fulbright Scholar at Budapest's Liszt Academy, his scholarly credentials complement his performing career. In 2018 he was awarded a PhD from the Royal College of Music in London for his thesis on the castrato Senesino (Francesco Bernardi) and early 18th-century Italian opera

About Mary Bevan:

Mary Bevan is one of Britain's most celebrated sopranos, equally at home in opera, concert, and recital. During the 2025/26 season, she debuts with the Dutch National Opera in a new Michel van der Aa commission Theory of Flames, sings Pat Nixon in John Adams's Nixon in China conducted by the composer in Rome, and returns to the Semperoper Dresden in Handel's Saul.

In recent seasons she has sung the title role in La Calisto with the Bayerische Staatsoper, Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare with Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Morgana in Alcina at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Eurydice in Orfeo ed Eurydice for Teatro La Fenice. Her concert appearances have included her Carnegie Hall debut with the English Concert, Haydn's Creation at the Barbican with the Academy of Ancient Music, and Bach's Mass in B Minor at the BBC Proms. She has toured extensively across Europe, Australia, Asia, and the US. Bevan's many releases on Signum Records include Elegy, art song albums, Voyages and Divine Muse, French song album Visions Illuminées, and Handel's Queens. She was awarded an MBE in the Queen's birthday honors list in 2019 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2025.

About Laurence Cummings:

Laurence Cummings is Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music and Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música in Porto, and one of Britain’s most exciting exponents of historical performance both as a conductor and harpsichordist. A noted authority on Handel, the Guardian has written that “he now ranks as one of the composer's best advocates in the world. Self-effacing on the podium, faithful above all to the score, he matches Handel's energy and invention with unmistakable lyricism, generosity and dignity.”

Frequently praised for his stylish and compelling performances in the opera house, his career has taken him across Europe conducting productions at Royal Ballet and Opera Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Opernhaus Zurich, Dutch National Opera, Theater an der Wien, and Gothenburg Opera, working with directors including David McVicar, Christoph Marthaler, Deborah Warner, and Peter Sellars. He is equally at home on the concert platform, regularly invited to conduct both period and modern instrument orchestras worldwide.

His previous collaborations with Randall Scotting include The Crown, Heroic Arias for Senesino with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Infinite Refrain, Music of Love's Refuge with Academy of Ancient Music, both on Signum Classics.

About Academy of Ancient Music:

Academy of Ancient Music is an orchestra with a worldwide reputation for excellence in baroque and classical music. Using historically informed techniques, period-specific instruments and original sources, they bring music vividly to life in committed, vibrant performances.

Established more than 50 years ago by Christopher Hogwood, AAM has released more than 300 albums to date, collecting countless accolades including Classic BRIT, Gramophone and Edison awards. They are the most listened-to period-instrument orchestra online, with over one million monthly listeners on streaming platforms. AAM recently celebrated their Golden Anniversary with the completion of a landmark project to record Mozart's complete works for keyboard and orchestra, a series described by the Financial Times as having “set new standards.”

Beyond the concert hall, AAM is committed to nurturing the next generation of musicians through their innovative AAMplify initiative, working with music colleges and universities across the UK. AAM holds the position of Associate Ensemble at London’s Barbican Centre and the Teatro San Cassiano, Venice, and Orchestra-in-Residence at the University of Cambridge and The Apex, Bury St Edmunds.

About Signum Records:

Signum Records is a leading British independent label, specialising in classical music. Founded in 1997, Signum boasts a catalogue of over 900 titles collectively streamed over 850 million times and continues to release 40+ new recordings each year by internationally acclaimed artists. Signum works closely with its sister company, Floating Earth, the leading production and engineering specialist service provider in Europe.

Album Track Listing & Credits:

Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage
Randall Scotting, countertenor | Mary Bevan, soprano | Academy of Ancient Music led by Laurence Cummings
Release Date: March 13, 2026
Signum Classics

1. *Mostro crudel che fai? from Idaspe [4:34]
Riccardo Broschi (c. 1698-1756) | Venice 1730

2. Porto piagato in petto from Ambleto [3:01]
Francesco Gasparini (1661-1727) | London 1712

3. Sinfonia from Rinaldo | Instrumental [1:02]
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) | London 1711

4. Cara sposa from Rinaldo [10:00]
G.F. Handel | London 1711

5. *Spiegami il tuo desio from Siface [5:55]
Nicola Porpora (1686-1768) | Venice 1726
with Mary Bevan, soprano

6. Oh notte!… Notte amica from Amadigi [4:47]
G.F. Handel | London 1715

7. *Come nave in mezzo all'onda from Siface [5:28]
N. Porpora | Venice 1726

8. *Per te bell'idol mio from Antioco [4:48]
F. Gasparini | London 1711
with Mary Bevan, soprano

9. *È vano ogni pensiero from Idaspe fedele [8:56]
Francesco Mancini (1672-1737) | London 1710

10. Venti turbini from Rinaldo [5:02]
G.F. Handel | London 1711

11. *Nò, non piangete nò from Tito Manlio [4:43]
Attilio Ariosti (1666-1729) | London 1717

12. *Sì, t'intendo o core amante from Tomiri [3:41]
F. Gasparini | London 1709

13. *Questo conforto from Antioco [5:47]
F. Gasparini | London 1712

14. *Pensa se ancor from Mitridate [5:18]
Giovanni Antonio Giaj (1690-1764) | Venice 1729

15. Crudel tu non farai from Amadigi [5:30]
G.F. Handel | London 1715
with Mary Bevan, soprano

*recorded for the first time

Total Time: 78:37

Randall Scotting, countertenor
Mary Bevan, soprano
Laurence Cummings, conductor and harpsichord
Academy of Ancient Music

Recorded: November 18-21, 2024
Location: St Jude On-the-Hill, Hampstead, London, UK
Producer: Nicholas Parker
Audio Engineer, Mixing, and Mastering: Tom Lewington
Assistant Engineer: Alex Sermon
Musical Coaching: Yukiko Oba and Murray Hipkin

Concept, Repertoire Selections, and Performing Editions: Randall Scotting, PhD
Album Booklet, Package Design, Copy Editing, and Photo Editing: Nic Mramer

Christopher Jesina 1/16/26 Christopher Jesina 1/16/26

Feb. 20: Pianist and Composer Olivia Belli Releases Her First Piano Concerto Daimon on Sony Classical – New Single The Departure Out Now

Pianist and Composer Olivia Belli
Releases Her First Piano Concerto Daimon on Sony Classical

New Single: The Departure
Out Now | Watch Music Video Here

Album Release Date: February 20, 2026
Pre-Save | Listen Here

Whether Johann Sebastian Bach, Frédéric Chopin, Philip Glass or Arvo Part– the works of these composers have inspired Olivia Belli, one of the most captivating voices in the neoclassical scene. Equally, art and literature open new worlds for her, fueling her creativity as a composer. The starting point for her Sony Classical album Daimon –– to be released on February 20, 2026 –– was Homer’s  Odyssey. “It was Odysseus’ fate to return to his homeland Ithaca,” says Olivia Belli. “That’s where his wife and son were – everything that defined him.” New single, The Departure is out now. Watch the accompanying music video here.

The idea that every life is essentially a journey, one that inevitably leads us toward our true purpose, deeply fascinated the Italian artist from the picturesque Marche region. From this concept emerged the piano concerto Daimon – recorded with a string orchestra and inspired by Italian Baroque music. It consists of three movements: The Departure, The Journey, and The Return. The second movement, The Journey, stands out in particular. It reflects the trials, hardships, and suffering faced not only by Odysseus but also by Olivia Belli herself on her path to catharsis. These emotional highs and lows unfold in strikingly epic soundscapes.

Olivia Belli consciously wove her own biography into the concerto. Daimon spans her life from adolescence to the present. As the daughter of a bank manager, she moved frequently as a child. Despite discovering exciting cities, she always felt something was missing – though she couldn’t quite name it.

That changed at age 14, when an accident left her bedridden for several months. “During that time, I was thrown back on myself. With no distractions, I realized what I truly needed: music and nature.” She had reached the point Socrates once described: “You must know who you are before you go out into the world.” In other words, Olivia Belli had found what the Greek term daimon expresses – her calling. Since then, she has never lost sight of her purpose.

Olivia Belli studied with distinguished pianists and pedagogues including Alexander Lonquich, Jörg Demus, Franco Scala, and Piero Rattalino, and also pursued composition studies, enriching her artistic identity. She has performed at acclaimed events such as the Piano Nights in Amsterdam, the Montreal Jazz Festival, and the Steinway & Sons Piano Series at the Royal Albert Hall (Elgar Room). Olivia Belli has also composed works for various artists, including Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen, French cellist Gautier Capuçon, and British organist Anna Lapwood. Above all, she has continually embarked on sonic explorations for her own recordings – often inspired by nature or Greek mythology. Her latest creative phase, especially with the piano concerto Daimon, has produced something truly exceptional for a neoclassical artist. Rather than relying on force and orchestral grandeur, this work calls for sensitivity – expressed in Olivia Belli’s unmistakable musical language. She favors gentleness, nuanced emotion, and pastel tonal colors.

Following Daimon, her recording continues with the Ithaca Suite, another musical journey into ancient Greece. This piece portrays the characters Odysseus encounters upon his return – including his father Laertes and his son Telemachus. In these Rencontres, cellist Raphaela Gromes, violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing, and saxophonist Jess Gillam shine as guest musicians. Olivia Belli not only contributes her musical signature but also embraces the collaborative spirit with her fellow artists. Her openness to shared creative processes and her refined sense for musical dialogue make her a sought-after partner – both as a pianist and composer. This artistic connection is also reflected in Olivia Belli’s own compositions, where she interweaves personal themes with universal emotions.

Odysseus’ wife Penelope is honored by Olivia Belli with a piano solo at the heart of the Ithaca Suite, its melody gently oscillating between melancholy and hope. “There is no Odysseus without Penelope,” the musician reflects. “Knowing you’re not alone is essential. We exist above all thanks to the people by our side.”

The album concludes with a sonata that openly reveals its unpretentious beauty: the Sonatina for Nausicaa. Nausicaa was the daughter of the Phaeacian king. She did not shy away when she found the shipwrecked Odysseus on the shore, but instead offered him clothes and food. “Nowadays, few would invite a homeless person into their home,” Olivia Belli observes. “For many, a person’s worth is measured primarily by success or money. Yet we all have our own unique calling.”

Daimon: Piano Concerto, Ithaca Suite & Sonatina for Nausicaa
Release Date: February 20, 2025

Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra Daimon

1            I. The Departure
2            II. The Journey
3            III. The Return

              Ithaca Suite
4            I. Proci
5            II. Telemachus
6            III. Eumaeus
7            IV. Penelopeia
8            V. Eurycleia
9            VI. Laertes
10          VII. Pax Athenae

              Sonatina for Nausicaa
11          I. Semplice
12          II. Andantino
13          III. Allegretto

Olivia Belli & Eldbjørg Hemsing – Telemachus (Official Music Video)

# # #

CONNECT WITH OLIVIA BELLI
Website | Instagram | Facebook | X | YouTube

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com.

Christopher Jesina 1/16/26 Christopher Jesina 1/16/26

Out Now: Sony Classical Releases 2026 New Year’s Concert with The Vienna Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Sony Classical Releases The 2026 New Year’s Concert
with The Vienna Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Album Release Dates:
Digital: Out Now
CD: Out Today
DVD and Blu-Ray: January 30, 2026
Available Now

The most famous event in the world of classical music will be available on Sony Classical in a digital format, on 2 CDs, on vinyl, on DVD and on Blu-ray
Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducted the concert for the very first time.

On January 1, 2026, Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducted the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert from the world-famous Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. It was his first appearance at this event. There are few concerts in the world that are awaited with as much excitement as the New Year’s Concert from Vienna, which is broadcast to over 150 countries and watched by more than 50 million viewers.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who is the music director of both the Metropolitan Opera in New York and of the Philadelphia Orchestra, can look back on a long association with the Vienna Philharmonic. His program for the 2026 New Year’s Concert included not only popular pieces such as Roses from the South and the Fledermaus Quadrille but also five rarities, all of which were heard for the first time in this setting. Among them are works by the Black American composer Florence Price (1887–1953) and by Josephine Weinlich (1848–87), who founded the first all-women’s orchestra in Europe.

The annual New Year’s Concert has been a major event in the musical calendar for more than eight decades. Starting in 1939, it is now broadcast on television and on the radio and reaches millions of viewers and listeners all over the world. Among the internationally acclaimed conductors who have appeared on the podium at this event have been Herbert von Karajan, Lorin Maazel, Claudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Seiji Ozawa, Mariss Jansons, Franz Welser-Möst and Gustavo Dudamel. As Austria’s musical ambassadors, the members of the Vienna Philharmonic extend their New Year greetings to the whole world in a spirit of hope, friendship and peace by performing lively, carefree and at the same time nostalgic and more serious music by members of the Strauß family and their contemporaries.

Program of the 2026 New Year’s Concert

Johann Strauss II Overture to the operetta Indigo and the Forty Thieves
Carl Michael Ziehrer Legends of the Danube. Waltz op. 446*
Joseph Lanner Malapou Galops op. 148/1*
Eduard Strauss Brausteufelchen. Polka schnell op. 154*
Johann Strauss II Fledermaus Quadrille op. 363
Johann Strauss I The Carnival of Paris. Galop op. 100
Franz von Suppè Overture to the operetta The Fair Galatea
Josephine Weinlich Siren Songs. Polka mazur op. 13 (arr. W. Dörner)*
Josef Strauss Women’s Dignity Waltz op. 277
Johann Strauss II Diplomats’ Polka. Polka française op. 448
Florence Price Rainbow Waltz (arr. W. Dörner)*
Hans Christian Lumbye Copenhagen Steam Railway Galop
Johann Strauss II Roses from the South. Waltz op. 388
Johann Strauss II Egyptian March op. 335
Josef Strauss Olive Branch Waltz, op. 207

Encores:
Philipp Fahrbach Circus, Quick Polka, Op. 110
Johann Strauss II The Blue Danube, Waltz, Op. 314
Johann Strauss I Radetzky March, Op. 228

* for the first time at a New Year’s Concert

Christopher Jesina 1/16/26 Christopher Jesina 1/16/26

New Single from Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light Out Today - Full Album Out February 27 on New Amsterdam/Nonesuch Records

New Single from Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light Out Today

Full Album Featuring Four Orchestral Works to be Released
February 27 on New Amsterdam/Nonesuch Records

Recorded by Metropolis Ensemble
Andrew Cyr, Artistic Director/Conductor

New Single Out Today:
Eye of Mnemosyne: III. Mori: “Memory of the Dead”
Listen Now
Watch the Official Video

Review CDs and downloads available upon request.

A new single from Sarah Kirkland Snider’s fifth full-length LP, an all-orchestral album titled Forward Into Light, is out today alongside an official video created for the track by multimedia artist and visual designer Deborah Johnson/CandyStations. The new single, Mori: “Memory of the Dead,” is the third movement of Snider’s multimedia orchestral work Eye of Mnemosyne, a piece exploring memory, innovation, and culture as refracted through the lens of photography, commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic. The video incorporates photos from George Eastman’s groundbreaking Kodak campaigns to reframe American cultural identity as well as references to Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory. Produced by multi-GRAMMY-winning producer Silas Brown and recorded by GRAMMY-nominated Metropolis Ensemble led by artistic director/conductor Andrew Cyr, Forward Into Light will be co-released by Nonesuch Records and the label that Snider co-founded, New Amsterdam Records, on February 27, 2026.

In addition to Eye of Mnemosyne, the new album features three more orchestral works by Snider: Forward Into Light, a commission for the New York Philharmonic inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; the string orchestra and harp (Noël Wan) version of Drink the Wild Ayre, a reimagining of the string quartet Snider wrote for the Emerson String Quartet as the ensemble’s final commission; and Something for the Dark, a meditation on resilience, commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra after Snider won its Lebenbom Competition in 2014.

Watch the Official Video for Mori: “Memory of the Dead”:

Snider, deemed “one of new music’s leading names” (Gramophone), writes music of direct expression and dramatic narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (New York Times), “groundbreaking” (Boston Globe), and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). With an attention to detail that is “as intricate and exquisite as a spider’s web” (BBC Music Magazine), her music synthesizes diverse influences to render a nuanced command of immersive storytelling.

“I chose to create an album of these four works because they share themes of perseverance, alliance, and evolution through dark and light – concepts that have been at the forefront of my mind in recent years,” Sarah Kirkland Snider says. “Beyond that, there are musical connections: three of the works feature certain motivic ideas that have haunted me over the past few years, appearing in different guises across projects.”

The album has been recorded with 21st century listeners in mind. Snider states:

“Some of my most vivid memories of feeling awake and alive – whether walking city streets as an adult or lying in the dark on the floor in my childhood bedroom – have been inspired by listening to orchestral music recordings on headphones. In some ways, I’ve loved listening this way even more than live, because it feels private and personal – like a dream you can revisit in any way, at any time. Since childhood, I’ve longed to be on the other side of that alchemical exchange, creating sonic journeys that a listener can personalize in even the most mundane settings.

When I began thinking about recording my own orchestral music, I knew I wanted a sonically immersive, dynamic, and intricate listening experience – one in which the subtlest orchestration details and tempo changes could be fully realized. To that end, Metropolis and I recorded this music with intentionally idiosyncratic approaches to isolation and tempo mapping, maximizing control over individual lines without sacrificing musicality or expressivity. With that freedom, the mix became painstakingly detailed – but also deeply gratifying.”

Andrew Cyr, Metropolis Ensemble's artistic director and conductor, shares this vision for the recording process. He says, “At Metropolis, the studio is another stage, and recording is its own artistic medium. What draws me to it is the potential for a different kind of closeness: an intensely shared attentiveness between performer and listener. On one end, the composer, musicians, and engineers shape every breath and balance; on the other, technology carries that intention directly to the ear. For this album, we lived with the music for eight months – playing, listening, refining. From tracking to post-production, we worked with a panoramic syntax, engineered for Atmos and modern playback, letting depth, focus, and perspective carry Sarah’s orchestration and vision.”

The new album joins Sarah Kirkland Snider’s previous full-length LPs – The Blue Hour (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch, 2022), Mass for the Endangered (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch, 2020), Unremembered (New Amsterdam, 2015), and Penelope (New Amsterdam, 2010) – which have garnered year-end nods and critical acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Gramophone Magazine, Pitchfork, BBC Music Magazine, The Nation, and many others.

About Sarah Kirkland Snider: Sarah Kirkland Snider’s music has been commissioned and/or performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Cleveland Orchestra; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; National Symphony Orchestra; New York Philharmonic; San Francisco Symphony; Philharmonia Orchestra; Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Residentie Orkest; Birmingham Royal Ballet; Emerson String Quartet; Renée Fleming and Will Liverman; Deutsche Grammophon for mezzo Emily D’Angelo; percussionist Colin Currie; eighth blackbird; A Far Cry; and Roomful of Teeth, among many others. In addition to the music on this album, Snider’s recent works include Mass for the Endangered, a Trinity Wall Street-commissioned prayer for the environment for choir and ensemble, programmed by dozens of choirs the world over; and Embrace, an orchestral ballet for the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Highlights of Snider’s 2025-2026 concert season include the milestone premieres of three major new works – her first opera, HILDEGARD, for which she also wrote the libretto, co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival and School and presented in rolling world premieres by Los Angeles Opera (November 5-9, 2025) and PROTOTYPE Festival in New York (January 9-17, 2026), with subsequent performances at the Aspen Music Festival and School (Summer 2026); a new work for dance for the New World Symphony and Miami City Ballet (April 17-19, 2026); and the professional world premiere performances of Snider’s latest orchestral work Marmoris by the Monterey Symphony (May 16-17, 2026). Her music will be performed around the world this season in cities including Paris, France; Offenbach, Germany; Toronto and Kitchener, Ontario, Canada; Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia; and Antwerp, Belgium; as well as across the United States from Brooklyn, New York and Baltimore, Maryland to Wheeling, West Virginia; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Berkeley, California.

A founding Co-Artistic Director of Brooklyn-based non-profit New Amsterdam Records, Sarah Kirkland Snider has an M.M.and Artist’s Diploma from the Yale School of Music, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. The winner of the 2014 Detroit Symphony Orchestra Lebenbom Competition, Snider was a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University in fall 2023. Her music is published by G. Schirmer. For more information about Sarah Kirkland Snider: www.sarahkirklandsnider.com/bio

About Metropolis Ensemble: Metropolis Ensemble is a GRAMMY-nominated, New York City-based orchestral collective and non-profit production house shaping today’s musical landscape. Founded in 2006 by GRAMMY-nominated conductor-producer Andrew Cyr, Metropolis champions exceptional composers and performers at pivotal moments – turning ideas into premieres, site-specific experiences, and definitive recordings. Metropolis provides the scaffolding artists need – bespoke ensembles, creative productions, multi-genre collaborations, and direct on-ramps to global stages – launching careers and inspiring new audiences. The ensemble has been presented by BAM’s Next Wave, The Met, Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, New Victory Theater, and Prototype. Cross-genre collaborators include Questlove & The Roots, Wye Oak, Deerhoof, Emily Wells, Caroline Rose, and the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, with stages from the Hollywood Bowl and Brooklyn Steel to Sounds from a Safe Harbour and Eaux Claires Hiver. Its recordings have earned wide acclaim – including Canada’s JUNO Award for Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto (2013 Best Contemporary Composition) and GRAMMY recognitions for Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto (2010 Best Solo Instrumental Performance), Timo Andres’s Home Stretch (part of David Frost’s 2013 Producer of the Year), and Timo Andres: The Blind Banister (2025 Best Engineered Album, Classical), which also landed on year-end lists from The New York Times, NPR Music, and Gramophone. Recognized as one of New York City’s most prolific incubators of new talent, Metropolis is a national model for artist-driven innovation. For more information about Metropolis: www.metropolisensemble.org

ALBUM TRACK LISTING:

Forward Into Light
Sarah Kirkland Snider | Metropolis Ensemble | Andrew Cyr
New Amsterdam/Nonesuch Records | Release Date: February 27, 2026
All Music by Sarah Kirkland Snider

1. Forward Into Light [15:04]

2. Drink the Wild Ayre [12:45]
Noël Wan, harp

Eye of Mnemosyne
3. Prelude: Eye of Mnemosyne [2:28]
4. Mnemonic: Wheel of the Muses [1:41]
5. Mori: Memory of the Dead [1:43]
6. Vivere: Power of the Snapshot [3:21]
7. Memento: Defense Against Time [3:17]
8. Nostos: War Story [2:57]
9. Ephemera: Fragmented Memory Psyche [1:36]
10. (Epilogue): Lens of Nostalgia [4:13]

Something for the Dark
11. The Promise [6:28]
12. Of Rise and Renewal [5:36]

Total time: 61:09

Produced by Silas Brown and Andrew Cyr
Engineered by Silas Brown, Wellington Gordon, Charles Mueller, Mike Tierney, Doron Schachter, and Ryan Streber
Mixed by Silas Brown; Silas Brown and Mike Tierney (Drink the Wild Ayre)
Mastered by Silas Brown/Legacy Sound
Recorded at Drew University, FSU College of Music, Field Notes, Sandbox Percussion, Oktaven Audio (January-June, 2025)
Graphic Design by David (DM) Stith
Photography by Anja Schütz

Christopher Jesina 1/16/26 Christopher Jesina 1/16/26

March 1 & 4: Pianist Sarah Cahill Performs Two Concerts in Westerville and Visits Otterbein University for Artist Residency

Sarah Cahill stands in greenhouse with plants surrounding her. — Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski available in high-resolution at jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill

Pianist Sarah Cahill Performs Two Concerts in Westerville
and Visits Otterbein University for Artist Residency

Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto with the Westerville Symphony
Conducted by Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson
Sunday, March 1, 2026 at 5pm
Fritsche Theatre at Cowan Hall | 30 S. Grove St. | Westerville, OH
Tickets and More Information

The Woods So Wild – A Concert Inspired by Nature at Otterbein University
Wednesday, March 4, 2026 at 7:30pm
Riley Auditorium in Battelle Fine Arts Center | 170 W. Park Street | Westerville, OH
Free and Open to the Public | More Information

Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert

www.sarahcahill.com

Westerville, OH – Bay Area-based pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, comes to Westerville in March for two performances and a residency at Otterbein University. On Sunday, March 1, 2026 at 5pm, she will be the featured soloist with the Westerville Symphony conducted by Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson, performing Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto at Fritsche Theatre at Cowan Hall (30 S. Grove St.). On Wednesday, March 4, 2026 at 7:30pm, she will perform her solo program The Woods So Wild in a free concert at the Battelle Fine Arts Center in Riley Auditorium (170 W. Park Street), presented by Otterbein University. In addition, while at Otterbein University, she will lead a masterclass and a lecture titled Reframing the Classical Canon focused on the inclusion of more works by women composers.

Sarah Cahill worked with prolific American composer Lou Harrison (1917–2003), a figure who greatly influenced the character of music in the 20th century, on several of his scores and is a staunch advocate of his music. Harrison was celebrated for his embrace of alternative tunings, musical traditions from around the world, and unconventional instruments. His Piano Concerto was composed for jazz/classical pianist Keith Jarrett from 1983 to 1985, and is unique in that the piano is retuned using an entirely different system – the black keys are tuned to a medieval system of exact intervals of fourths and fifths, and the white keys are tuned in a system common in the Renaissance and Baroque. Cahill has been performing this monumental concerto for the last twenty years. Watch her give an overview of the piece and perform selections from it here.

Cahill’s solo concert program The Woods So Wild features expressive works reflective of nature’s beauty. Forests, oceans, desert, mountains, flowers, grasslands, wilderness – throughout music’s history, composers have celebrated nature and the great outdoors. As humanity urgently strives to preserve this precious environment, reflecting on nature through music heightens society’s attention to its great wonders. In this concert, beginning with William Byrd’s The Woods So Wild from 1590, Sarah Cahill takes listeners on a wondrous journey through musical portraits of the natural world including Forest Scenes by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, A Morning in the Woods by Leo Ornstein, Murmur of the Wheat from Au sein de la nature by Leokadiya Kashperova, Hermit Thrush at Eve by Amy Beach, Patterns of Plants by Mamoru Fujieda, and The Mysterious Forest by Erkki Melartin.

About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).

Cahill’s latest project is The Future is Female, an investigation and reframing of the piano literature featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works. Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts at The Barbican, Metropolitan Museum, Carolina Performing Arts, National Gallery of Art, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Music Festival. Cahill also performed music from The Future is Female for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series.

Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Her three-album series, The Future is Female, was released on First Hand Records between March 2022 and April 2023. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe, from the 17th century to the present day, and include many world premiere recordings.

Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, performs as a featured soloist with the Westerville Symphony, conducted by Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson, on March 1, 2026 at 5pm. Cahill will perform Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto. The evening’s program will also include Gustav Holst’s Japanese Suite, and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7 in C Major.

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill
Presented by Westerville Symphony, Conducted by Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson
What: Lou Harrsion’s Piano Concerto, Gustav Holst’s Japanese Suite, and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7 in C Major
When: Sunday, March 1, 2026 at 5pm
Where: Fritsche Theatre at Cowan Hall, 30 S Grove St, Westerville, OH 43081
More information: westervillesymphony.org/event-details/masterworks-ii

Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as a “keen and captivating pianist” by The Washington Post, brings her program The Woods So Wild, an array of expressive works that reflect the beauty of nature, to Otterbein University. The concert will include works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mamoru Fujieda, William Byrd, Errki Melartin, Amy Beach, Leo Ornstein and Leokadiya Kashperova. The performance is free and open to the public.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill in The Woods So Wild
Presented by Otterbein University
What: Music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mamoru Fujieda, William Byrd, Errki Melartin, Amy Beach, Leo Ornstein and Leokadiya Kashperova.
When: Wednesday, March 4, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Riley Auditorium in Battelle Fine Arts Center, 170 W. Park Street, Westerville, OH 43081
Free and Open to the Public
More information: www.otterbein.edu/music/events/#spring

Christopher Jesina 1/16/26 Christopher Jesina 1/16/26

Feb. 24: Composer & Pianist Vadim Neselovskyi Releases PERSEVERANTIA Executive Produced by John Zorn for Tzadik – Album Release Concert at Roulette in Brooklyn

Composer and Pianist Vadim Neselovskyi
Releases New Album PERSEVERANTIA

A Suite for Piano and String Trio in 11 Movements with Ysaÿe String Trio
Executive Produced by John Zorn for Tzadik

New Single & Video Out Today: March Passacaglia
Listen Now | Watch Now

Album Release Concert at Roulette
Thursday, March 5, 2026 at 8pm
509 Atlantic Ave. | Brooklyn, NY 11217
Tickets and More Information
Livestream

Worldwide Release Dates
Digital: February 24, 2026
CD: February 27, 2026
Pre-Order Available Now

“Neselovskyi is a rare mix of classically trained pianist and brilliant jazz improviser, a musical omnivore for whom different sounds have always flowed together.” – PBS Newshour

“Vadim Neselovskyi’s third-stream pianism shares the qualities of a sculpture carved in ice: finely wrought detail, sharply traced; glinting elegance; coolness to the touch; refractions of light. His right and left hands converse with each other in eager, enchanted dialogue. “
– The New York Times

“I truly believe that [Vadim Neselovskyi] is one of the greatest pianist / composers out there right now.” – Jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch

Downloads, Press Photos, and CDs available to press on request
VadimNeselovskyi.com | Tzadik.com

Ukrainian-born, Brooklyn-based Vadim Neselovskyi – composer, pianist, and Professor of Jazz Piano at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA – announces his new album PERSEVERANTIA, executive produced by John Zorn for Tzadik. Neselovskyi’s latest recording is an original suite for piano and string trio in 11 movements, performed together with the Netherlands-based Ysaÿe String Trio (Rada Ovcharova, violin; Emlyn Stam, viola and Willem Stam, cello). The album is scheduled for release on February 24, 2026, commemorating the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.

Neselovskyi will be presented at Roulette (509 Atlantic Ave.) for an album release concert on Thursday, March 5, 2026 at 8pm. Neselovskyi will be joined by violinist Pauline Kim Harris, violist Celia Hatton, and cellist Andrew Janss. A livestream will be available at 8pm on the day of the performance and available for future viewing.

A new single from PERSEVERANTIA, titled March Passacaglia, is out today, alongside an accompanying video release. Built on a calm, meditative flow, March Passacaglia unfolds as a ritual of mourning and hope. Written in the early months of the war in Ukraine, it channels collective grief into luminous harmony—a meditation on loss and the strength to endure.

As a young composer and pianist growing up in Odesa, Ukraine, Neselovskyi discovered that his calling was not to follow any one stylistic path but to become a "creator of music.” He has long since fulfilled that early promise in myriad ways both inventive and unexpected: as a composer whose vision is expansive enough to spark inspired interpretations from jazz trio and symphony orchestra alike; as an improviser carving surprising pathways through the straightahead, the avant-garde, and the indefinable; and as a collaborator valued by peers, mentors and fellow innovators.

Known for his collaborations with Gary Burton, John Zorn, and Fred Hersch, in 2022, Neselovskiy paid tribute to his hometown with ODESA (Sunnyside Records) – a ruminative and poetic solo piano album featuring compositions inspired by Ukrainian landmarks like the Odesa Railway Station, Potemkin Stairs, and Odesa Conservatory. The New York Times described how throughout the album, Neselovskyi “takes care to depict each given scene or concept with a sure compositional hand.” The album was also featured by NPR’s Morning Edition, WNYC's All of It, PBS Newshour, The Boston Globe, and more.

Three years later, both Neselovskyi’s compositional instincts and his sense of resilience have only grown, paving the way for PERSEVERANTIA – an album that tells a story of compassion, empathy, willpower, resistance, sincerity, falsehood, freedom, and the arduous path to it.

Neselovskyi says, “Stylistically, PERSEVERANTIA weaves together the many strands of my life, as a post-classical composer, world-touring jazz musician, and individual inextricably connected to my Ukrainian and Jewish roots, ultimately converging toward a single cohesive artistic statement.”

As a Ukrainian, Neselovskyi is deeply connected to current events. However, this suite is not only about the devastating war; it speaks to everyone, reflecting on timeless human challenges and the best aspects of human nature. Placing exhilarating piano improvisations in the context of gorgeous compositions for classical string trio, PERSEVERANTIA evokes a cornucopia of emotions and striking scenes, encouraging unhurried consideration from beginning to end.

“Composing PERSEVERANTIA was my way of processing everything that has happened in my home country since February 2022,” says Neselovskyi. “Music, particularly instrumental music devoid of lyrics, is a universal language. And while I did not intend for this work to be an easy listening experience, I hope that its message of resilience, empathy, and hope reaches those who choose to listen.”

PERSEVERANTIA is Vadim Neselovskyi’s seventh-length album following his most recent work – 2022’s critically acclaimed ODESA – an emotionally vivid and personal reflection on Neselovskyi’s Ukrainian birthplace and its connection to the composer’s multifaceted life.

Vadim Neselovskyi
PERSEVERANTIA: A Suite for Piano and String Trio

Release Date: February 24, 2026 | Tzadik
Recorded October 16-17, 2024 in Bethlehemkerk, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Tracklist:

[1] Before 24 [8:02]
[2] Tanks Near Kyiv [5:44]
[3] March Passacaglia [8:14]
[4] I Don’t Need a Ride [5:18]
[5] Orwell [6:27]
[6] Refugees [6:38]
[7] Dancing As If Nothing Ever Happened [5:59]
[8] Chorale [5:35]
[9] Lviv Funeral [2:56]
[10] Perseverantia [8:26]
[11] After 24 [7:54]

[Total Time: 71:13]

Vadim Neselovskyi, Piano
Rada Ovcharova, Violin
Emlyn Stam, Viola
Willem Stam, Cello

Executive Producer: John Zorn
Engineered by Joeri Saal
Mixed by Christian Heck
Edited by Lukas Lohner
Pre-Mastered by Christoph Stickel
Mastered by Scott Hull
Album Front Cover Photos by Alexander Yakimchuk
Album Back Cover Photos by Arkady Mitnik
Album Design by Heung Heung Chin

About Vadim Neselovskyi: The Los Angeles Times has praised Vadim Neselovskyi’s “extraordinary playing” while The Guardian (UK) called him “the most promising of the young improvisers." Whether as a pianist, composer, improviser, soloist or bandleader, Neselovskyi creates music that is truly inspired and wholly unique. His work has been played by jazz greats like Randy Brecker, Antonio Sanchez, Julian Lage, and Gary Burton, as well as classical artists (Daniel Gauthier, whose recording of Neselovskyi’s “San Felio” won an ECHO Classical Award) and symphony orchestras in the United States and Europe.

Those diverse talents have attracted the attention of revered artists crossing the boundaries of genre, including legendary vibraphonist Gary Burton, who famously enlisted Neselovskyi for his acclaimed Generations Quintet; the prestigious Graz Philharmoniker, which performed his composition “Prelude for Vibes” on their New Year’s program; iconoclastic composer/saxophonist John Zorn, who invited Neselovskyi to contribute to The Book Beriah,the final installment of his Masada project; and French horn/alphorn pioneer Arkady Shilkloper, a profound influence with whom the pianist now shares a longstanding duo collaboration. In the summer of 2022, an orchestral version of *Winter in Odesa*— one of the movements from the *Odesa Suite* — was premiered at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, featuring classical saxophone star Asya Fateyeva and Ensemble Reflektor as part of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. The concert was recorded and broadcast by ARTE TV.

About the Ysaÿe Trio: Founded in 2006 by Rada Ovcharova (violin), Emlyn Stam (viola) and Willem Stam (cello) the Ysaÿe Trio performs regularly at the leading festivals and concert halls throughout the Netherlands as well as abroad. “The Ysaÿe Trio performs with conviction, craftsmanship and love. Superb!” Haarlems Dagblad (Haarlem, Netherlands)

Christopher Jesina 1/16/26 Christopher Jesina 1/16/26

Feb. 13-14: Violinist Kristin Lee is Soloist with Nu-Deco Ensemble in A Reimagined Vivaldi Four Seasons – Conducted by Music Director Jacomo Bairos Presented by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Kristin Lee holds violin to her chest in front of dark grey backdrop. — ***Photo by Lauren Desberg available in hi-resolution at*** ***www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/kristin-lee***

Violinist Kristin Lee
is Featured Soloist with the Nu-Deco Ensemble
Conducted by Nu-Deco Music Director Jacomo Bairos
Presented by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

in A Reimagined Vivaldi Four Seasons
Arranged by Sam Hyken

Friday, February 13, 2026 at 8pm
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
1212 Cathedral St. | Baltimore, MD
Tickets & Information

Saturday, February 14, 2026 at 8pm
The Music Center at Strathmore
5301 Tuckerman Ln. | North Bethesda, MD
Tickets & Information

Kristin Lee: www.violinistkristinlee.com

Baltimore, MD – Violinist Kristin Lee – praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy” – is presented by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in two performances on Friday, February 13 and Saturday, February 14, 2026 with the Miami, FL based Nu-Deco Ensemble, conducted by Nu-Deco Founder and Music Director Jacomo Bairos. Lee is the featured soloist in A Reimagined Vivaldi Four Seasons, arranged by Sam Hyken. The concert program, which is part of the BSO’s Fusion Series, also includes Overture to Candide by Leonard Bernstein, Umoja Unbound by Valerie Coleman, and an Earth, Wind, and Fire Suite by various artists.

Through both her work as a classical soloist, and her role as the Artistic Director of Emerald City Music –– a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State –– Lee has embraced works that showcase diversity of styles, composers, and time periods. Her adventurousness with programming and curation make this performance of a contemporary reimagining of Vivaldi’s iconic Four Seasons a perfect fit to highlight Lee’s appreciation of the traditional classical canon and music from other styles and traditions. The work blends the past and the present in a beloved piece of music, performed in celebration of its 300th anniversary (1725–2025).

“I am thrilled to make my debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, especially in this unique arrangement of one of the most cherished works ever written for the violin, marking the 300th anniversary of its publication this season,” says Lee. “Sam Hyken’s arrangement beautifully honors the past while bringing fresh life to the music, and I feel truly grateful to be part of this special performance.”

Other highlights of Lee’s 2025-2026 season include her Carnegie Hall recital debut performing American Sketches, a program curated by Lee as a celebration of the diversity of styles and cultures found in American music, as well as a symbol of Lee’s appreciation of and pride in the U.S., which she has long called her home. Lee will also perform with GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion in the world premiere of a new work by Vivan Fung, which is part of a special all-premiere concert presented by Emerald City Music as part of its 10th Anniversary Season. She will also perform as the featured soloist with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra in Recomposed: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons by Max Richter, in another performance highlighting the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s timeless work.

For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Violinist Kristin Lee, praised in The Strad for her “elegance” and “vivacity and electric energy,” will be the featured soloist in two performances with the Miami, FL based Nu-Deco Ensemble, presented by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Both performances will be conducted by Nu-Deco Founder and Music Director, Jacomo Bairos. Lee will perform A Reimagined Vivaldi Four Seasons (arr. by Sam Hyken). The program also includes Overture to Candide by Leonard Bernstein, Umoja Unbound by Valerie Coleman, and an Earth, Wind, and Fire Suite by various artists.

Concert details:

Who: Violinist Kristin Lee
Soloist with Nu-Deco Ensemble
Presented by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Nu-Deco Founder and Music Director Jacomo Bairos
What: Reimagined: Vivaldi's Four Seasons with Music by Antonio Vivaldi, Leonard Bernstein, Valerie Coleman, and various artists performing an Earth, Wind and Fire Suite
When: Friday, February 13, 2026 at 8pm and Saturday, February 14, 2026 at 8pm
Where: (Friday): Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St., Baltimore, MD 21201
(Saturday) The Music Center at Strathmore 5301 Tuckerman Ln, North Bethesda, MD 20852
Tickets and information: https://my.bsomusic.org/overview/19778

Christina Jensen 1/16/26 Christina Jensen 1/16/26

GatherNYC Presents Sunday Concerts at 11AM - Up Next: Empire Wild, Renaissance Ensemble Sonnambula, Viola Duo Tallā Rouge, and Boyd Meets Girl (Featuring Several World Premieres)

GatherNYC Presents Sunday Concerts - Up Next: Empire Wild, Renaissance Ensemble Sonnambula, Viola Duo Tallā Rouge, and Boyd Meets Girl (Featuring Several World Premieres)

Clockwise: Sonnambula, Empire Wild, Boyd Meets Girl, Tallā Rouge

GatherNYC Continues Expanded 2025-2026 Season in NYC
at Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Columbus Circle

31 Concerts – Now Held Weekly, Every Sunday Morning at 11AM through May 31, 2026

Up Next:
February 1: Empire Wild (Cello + Piano)
February 8: Sonnambula (Renaissance Instruments)
February 15: Tallā Rouge (Viola Duo)
February 22: Boyd Meets Girl (Guitar + Cello)

“thoughtful, intimate events curated with refreshing eclecticism by its founders, the cellist Laura Metcalf and the guitarist Rupert Boyd, complete with pastries and coffee – The New Yorker

“A sweet chamber music series” – The New York Times

“Impressive Aussie/American led concert series proves music can be a religion.”
– Limelight Magazine

Museum of Arts and Design | The Theater at MAD | 2 Columbus Circle | NYC

Tickets & Information: www.gathernyc.org

New York, NY – GatherNYC, a revolutionary concert experience founded in 2018 by cellist Laura Metcalf and guitarist Rupert Boyd, continues its expanded 2025-2026 season at the series’ home venue, Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) (2 Columbus Circle). For the first time, GatherNYC is offering weekly concerts, held every Sunday morning at 11am, in The Theater at MAD. Coffee and pastries are served before each performance at 10:30am. Admission for children under 12 is free. The series presents an astonishing thirty-one concerts between October 2025 and May 2026.

Guests at GatherNYC are served exquisite live classical music performed by New York’s immensely talented artists, artisanal coffee and pastries, a taste of the spoken word, and a brief celebration of silence. The entire experience lasts one hour and evokes the community and spiritual nourishment of a religious service – but the religion is music, and all are welcome.

Spoken word artists perform briefly at the midpoint of each concert, many of whom are winners of The Moth StorySLAM events. “It’s an interesting moment of something completely different from the music, and it often connects with the audience,” Metcalf told Strings magazine in a feature about the series. “Then we have a two-minute celebration of silence when we turn the lights down, centering ourselves in the center of the city. Then the lights come back on, and the music starts again out of the silence. We find that the listening and the feeling in the room changes after that.”

Metcalf and Boyd say, “We are thrilled to be offering 31 concerts throughout our expanded 2025-2026 season, by far our largest lineup yet. In these challenging times, we feel it’s essential to provide our community with a gathering place each week where we can enjoy world-class artists together in an intimate, unique setting – complete with spoken word, silence, coffee and a communal, welcoming environment. We look forward to welcoming new and old friends week after week.”

Up Next – All Concerts Take Place on Sundays at 11AM:

February 1: Empire Wild
Empire Wild, founded by Juilliard-trained cellists Mitchell Lyon and Ken Kubota, joins forces with acclaimed jazz pianist Addison Frei for a genre-bending program that fuses pop, folk, jazz, and classical traditions into an electrifying, original sound. Honored with the Concert Artists Guild Ambassador Prize, the ensemble captivates audiences with inventive compositions, reimagined classics, and the limitless possibilities of cross-genre collaboration.

February 8: Sonnambula
Praised as “remarkable” and “superb” by the New Yorker, Sonnambula is a historically-informed ensemble that brings to light unknown music for various combinations of early instruments with the lush sound of the viol at the core. The ensemble is currently the 2025-26 ensemble in residence at The Frick Collection, and will share music from their recently-released and critically-acclaimed album Passing Fancy: Beauty in a Moment of Chaos. Do not miss the chance to hear these rare and beautiful instruments up close!

February 15: Tallā Rouge
Tallā Rouge's brings selections from their debut album, Shapes in Collective Space, to GatherNYC, weaving together a narrative of love, loss, childlike glee, and reflection. Featuring diverse and genre-defying compositions by inti figgis-vizueta, Kian Ravaei, Karl Mitze, and Leilehua Lanzilotti, Tallā Rouge sonically explores the raw emotions that shape our collective humanity — beckoning us to embrace and cherish the impermanence of life.

February 22: Boyd Meets Girl
GatherNYC’s own artistic directors, cellist Laura Metcalf and guitarist Rupert Boyd, take the stage to share several world premieres for the unique combination of cello and guitar by Stephen Goss, Reinaldo Moya and more, as well as works from their upcoming third album release.

2026 GatherNYC Schedule:March 1: Exponential Ensemble
Exponential Ensemble, led by clarinetist Pascal Archer, is one of the most innovative ensembles on the NYC music scene. Exponential Ensemble’s mission includes commissioning and premiering works by living composers that are inspired by math, science and literacy, and their GatherNYC debut showcases the woodwind players from the Ensemble performing works by French and American composers, including “Wild Birds” by Brad Balliett inspired by wild birds living in New York City’s Central Park!

March 8: Inbal Segev, cello
Inbal Segev, a formidable cello soloist who stands out not only for her captivating sound and stage presence, but also for her curiosity and creativity. She has commissioned and premiered numerous concertos for cello and orchestra, and for this intimate solo performance she invites us into her compelling sound world, playing both her own compositions and music of Anna Clyne, Missy Mazzolli and more.

March 15: Palaver Strings
GatherNYC is proud to present this masterful and creative Portland, ME- based string chamber orchestra. Their program “The Apple of Their Eyes” explores the African-American experience in classical music, through the eyes of Black composers. It begins with William Grant Still’s lush and lyrical Mother and Child, and continues with Perry’s understated Prelude for Piano, arranged for strings. At the heart of the program is Edmund Thornton Jenkins Romance and Reverie Phantasy for Violin and String Orchestra, restored, edited, and arranged by Tuffus Zimbabwe, featuring Palaver violinist Maïthéna Girault. The Apple of their Eyes encapsulates the African-American experience, and celebrates the richness and depth of Black classical music.

March 22: The Knights – An Interactive Family Concert
Following their wildly successful family concert in November 2024, The Knights return to GatherNYC with a new program, also designed for the whole family. “Toy Bricks” is an interactive family concert that highlights playful interactions between stringed instruments, both large and small! Musical games and friendly competition bring friends together in a range of repertoire, culminating in a performance of Paul Wiancko’s Toy Bricks for violin, two cellos, and bass. This program is created and hosted by Knights cellist Caitlin Sullivan.

March 29: String Trios – Miranda Cuckson, violin + Jessica Meyer, viola + Laura Metcalf, cello
This program brings together four electrifying contemporary string trios by living female composers: Jessica Meyer, Missy Mazzolli, Nina C. Young, and Dobrinka Tabakova. These powerful works push the boundaries of what is possible on three stringed instruments.

April 5: Rachell Ellen Wong, violin + David Belkovski, harpsichord
Following their much-loved performance at GatherNYC in 2023 as part of the early music collective Twelfth Night, Wong and Belkovski return to the stage for a charming and intimate recital featuring impeccably performed Baroque gems.

April 12: Boyd Meets Girl and Friends play Clarice Assad & Osvoldo Golijov
This exciting program for flute, guitar and string quartet pair works by two superstar Latin-American composers whose styles contrast and compliment each other. Golijov’s achingly beautiful Tenebrae is juxtaposed with Clarice Assad’s exhilarating Sephardic Suite. Boyd Meets Girl is joined by violinists David Felberg and Jennifer Choi and violist En-Chi Cheng.

April 19: Kebra-Seyoun Charles, bass + composer
Kebra-Seyoun Charles is a distinguished double bass soloist and composer lauded for their counter-classical musical language and their ability to aptly communicate complex ideas and emotions to audiences. For their GatherNYC debut, they will perform a new work entitled “Shango” for bass and percussion duo, interspersed with virtuosic double bass solos.

April 26: Poeisis Quartet
Fresh off their win at the 2025 Banff International String Quartet Competition (arguably the most important competition of its kind in the world), this fast-rising young string quartet will treat audiences to its vital and energetic approach to music-making and programming.

Says Poeisis of their program: “In collaboration with five emerging QTPOC (Queer/Trans People of Color) composers from our alma mater, Oberlin College & Conservatory, the Oberlin Commission Project expands the string quartet canon with approaches to music-making that are too often unheard. This initiative brings underrepresented voices, genres, and influences to the forefront, and also serves as an act of resistance and perseverance. Composer Zola Saadi-Klein's composition is rooted in the Persian Dastgāh music tradition, and through their work they are "acknowledging our queer and ancestral identities can freely coexist beyond the binaries of classical music and societal expectations." As queer musicians and as Oberlin graduates, this project serves as our way of giving back to the communities who raised us and brought us together.”

May 3: Thomas Mesa, cello + JP Jofre, bandoneon
Two of the most exciting soloists working today, Mesa and Jofre come together for a morning of tango and tango-inspired works that spotlight the unusual combination of their instruments, cello and bandoneon, while allowing each performer to shine.

May 10: Curtis Stewart, violin + composer
GatherNYC favorite, Curtis Stewart, returns to the stage with a preview of his much-anticipated project “24 American Caprices.” The 24 American Caprices are inspired by a kaleidoscope of recorded American music, with some honorary American additions...musical aspects of each inspiration are abstracted and imbued with challenging violin techniques emulating the sounds and styles of their origin. In the full meaning of caprice, these violin fragments dance and sing lightly from inspiration to ornamentation, both with flights of fantasy and fastidious settings of referenced material, creating playful musical dialogue around American lineage and individual perspective in Classical music.

May 17: Catalyst Quartet
The GRAMMY-winning Catalyst Quartet, known for their masterful, comprehensive recordings of music by Black composers throughout history, bring their signature polish and style back to GatherNYC for the second time.

May 24: Aeolus Quartet
The acclaimed Aeolus Quartet presents a touching and thoughtful program for their first performance at GatherNYC. From a Bach chorale composed to unite the voices of church congregations to the expansive Overture and Chorale by Andrea Casarrubios inspired by it; from the textural celebration of Montgomery's Strum to the bubbling virtuosity of Bacewicz’s Quartet No. 3 composed in the new world that arose from the ashes of WWII. In this program, storytelling and silence give way to the tender slow movement of Price’s G Major Quartet rooted in the tradition of Black spirituals.

May 31: Season Finale – Musicians from the NY Phil with Boyd Meets Girl
GatherNYC artistic directors Laura Metcalf and Rupert Boyd once again team up with members of the New York Philharmonic, including returning violist Leah Ferguson, violinist Alina Kobialka and more, to craft an exhilarating program centered around Aaron Jay Kernis’ tour de force for guitar and string quartet, “100 Greatest Dance Hits.” Dance into the summer and celebrate the conclusion of another wonderful season of GatherNYC!

For tickets and information, visit www.gathernyc.org.

Christopher Jesina 1/9/26 Christopher Jesina 1/9/26

Feb. 8: Telegraph Quartet Performs “From the Heart” – Presented by Constellations Chamber Concerts

Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.

Telegraph Quartet Performing From the Heart
Presented by Constellations Chamber Concerts

Featuring the Music of Franz Joseph Haydn,
Grażyna Bacewicz, and George Rochberg

Sunday, February 8, 2026 at 3pm
Constellations Music Salon | 8817 Belmart Rd. | Potomac, MD
Tickets and More Information

Telegraph Quartet’s New Album
20th Century Vantage Points Vol. 2: Edge of the Storm Out Now

Review downloads & CDs available upon request.

"precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication" – The Strad

www.TelegraphQuartet.com

Potomac, MD – On Sunday, February 8, 2026 at 3pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group The New York Times describes as “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by Constellations Chamber Concerts (8817 Belmart Rd.).

Known for technical prowess and an appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet brings its fluid synchronicity and refined artistry to a program showcasing an array of musical styles, titled From the Heart, featuring Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54 No. 2; Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet No. 1 –– for which the Telegraph Quartet will be joined by pianist and Constellations Artistic Director Ellen Hwangbo –– and George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3.

“This program, From the Heart, features works from each composer that taps into the deeply heartfelt expression possible through the intimacy of the string quartet. The first, by Haydn, while overtly optimistic in both the first and third movements, plumbs deep sorrow in its second movement and transcendence in the ruminations of the unconventionally slow fourth movement. Grażyna Bacewicz finds herself coming into her voice with the Piano Quintet, a period where she is reconnecting with how music can represent emotion deeply, contrary to her previously held beliefs. We end with a deeply personal work by George Rochberg that followed the premature death of his teenage son. In order to fully express the breadth of emotion he felt was needed after this traumatic event, Rochberg found himself turning away from the calculating serialism of his earlier days, and opening up his palette to the styles of Late Beethoven and Mahler as a vessel to fully express his feelings, an act that was both brave and heretical at the time of its composition.“

For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Concert details:

Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Constellations Chamber Concerts
What: Music by Franz Joseph Haydn, Grażyna Bacewicz, and George Rochberg
When: Sunday, February 8, 2026 at 3pm
Where: Constellations Music Salon, 8817 Belmart Rd, Potomac, MD 20854, USA
Tickets and information: constellationsmusic.org/event-details/telegraph-quartet

Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group the San Francisco Chronicle describes as having “soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail,” is presented in concert by Constellations Chamber Concerts. The ensemble will perform a program showcasing an array of musical styles titled, From the Heart, featuring Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54 No. 2; Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet No. 1 – for which they will be joined by pianist and Constellations Artistic Director Ellen Hwangbo – and George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3.

Christina Jensen 1/9/26 Christina Jensen 1/9/26

Jan 16: ECM New Series Releases con slancio from Heinz Holliger and Marie-Lise Schüpbach

ECM New Series Releases

con slancio

Heinz Holliger, oboe, English horn; Marie-Lise Schüpbach, English horn

Music by Heinz Holliger, Toshio Hosokawa, Jürg Wyttenbach, Jacques Wildberger, György Kurtág, Rudolf Kelterborn and Robert Suter

ECM New Series 2807
Release: January 16, 2026
Pre-Save: https://ecm.lnk.to/ConSlancio

Press downloads available upon request.

The release of con slancio, with premier recordings of music written by Swiss composer and nonpareil oboist Heinz Holliger, marks 40 years of collaboration with ECM New Series. Threaded throughout the album are strongly contrasting pieces dedicated to Holliger over the years by fellow composers. A spirit of vigor and enthusiasm animates both new pieces and tributes.

The Holliger compositions, written between 2018 and 2020, are con slancio for oboe solo, Ständchen für Rosemarie for English horn, and several duets for oboe and English horn: Spiegel – LIED, Lied mit Gegenüber (contr’air), Gangis (fang mich), and à deux – Adieu.

“Since I began playing in duo with Marie-Lise Schüpbach, I’ve been fascinated by the way our two instruments expand each other’s range and palette of tone colours,” says Heinz Holliger. “New sound paths have opened up for me.” He adds that the newest compositions almost completely forego the use of idiosyncratic “extended techniques” of which he has been a pioneer. The freshness of the Holliger/Schüpbach duo sound has been noted in reviews of their earlier release Zwiegesprespäche (2019) where Holliger’s music was interspersed with pieces by his friend and contemporary György Kurtág. “These performances, by Heinz Holliger and Marie-Lise Schüpbach, are simply astonishing in their fluency,” declared UK magazine Gramophone.

In an interview in the CD booklet Holliger suggests that while the oboe cannot ‘vocalize’ in ways that the flute can, the sound of the instrument can – as in Bach’s arias - be a substitute for the male voice that breaks in adolescence. “In my own case, too, since I had sung as a solo soprano before my voice changed.” In these late works, the oboe is singing more purely than ever.

Of the pieces written for Holliger here, the earliest are Jürg Wyttenbach’s Sonate (1961) and Jacques Wildberger’s Rondeau (1962), and the most recent are György Kurtág’s aphoristic con slancio, largamente and Toshio Hosokawa’s evocative Musubi (Knots), both written to celebrate Holliger’s 80th birthday in 2019.

Hosokawa says that the title of his piece, “was inspired by the Yin and Yang principle, the central concept of the creation of the universe in the East. Polar opposite elements such as man and woman, high and low, light and shadow coexist and complement each other, becoming intertwined without eradicating each other, whilst gradually shaping the harmony of the universe. In this music, the oboe and the English horn, both of which have a distinctive characteristic tone, become entwined and gradually knotted together through arabesque-like appoggiaturas.”

Rudolf Kelterborn’s Duett für Oboe and Englishhorn (2017) was one of the last pieces written by the Basel-born composer, who died in 2021. Holliger: “What impressed about Kelterborn is how much more daring he became in old age.” The piece poses some challenges: “At the opening, the English horn intones a deeply pathos-laden recitative, while the oboe responds with a plaintive lament in its most extreme register.”

The album closes with Robert Suter’s Oh Boe (1999) which calls for Sprechstimme as well as oboe,

juxtaposing vocal and instrumental utterances. “The text is really sharply phrased. It captures me quite well. The oboe attempts to declaim the same words…”

Heinz Holliger was born in Langenthal, Switzerland, in 1939. He pursued studies in composition with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez, and in parallel developed the gifts which would see him recognized as one of the world’s most outstanding oboists. Many composers have written works for him, including Frank Martin, Olivier Messiaen, Witold Lutoslawski, Luciano Berio, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Elliott Carter, Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Isang Yun. Holliger has also played a key role in the rediscovery of the music of neglected 18th-century masters such as Jan Zelenka.

Recordings with Heinz Holliger’s music on ECM include Scarnadelli-Zyklus (released 1993), Beiseit/Alb-Chehr (1995), Lieder ohne Worte (1997), Schneewittchen (2001), Violinkonzert ‘Hommage à Louis Soutter’ (2009), Romancendres (2009), Robert Schumann/Heinz Holliger (2011), Induuchlen (2011), Beethoven/Bruckner/Hartmann/Holliger (2013), Aschenmusik (2014), Machaut-Transkiptionen (2015), Zwiegespräche (2019), and Lunea (2022).

Albums with Holliger as performer include Jan Dismas Zelenka: Trio Sonatas (1999), Elliott Carter/Isang Yun: Lauds and Lamentations (2003), Jörg Widmann: Elegie (2011, with Holliger in debut as pianist on Fünf Bruchstücke), Johann Sebastian Bach: Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis – Konzerte und Sinfonien für Oboe (2011), and an album of French music, Éventail, with compositions by Messiaen, Ravel, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Milhaud and more (2023). Holliger also conducts Camerata Bern in music of Sandor Veress (1995), and the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln in music of Bernd Alois Zimmermann on Canto di speranza (2008).

Heinz Holliger has received many awards and prizes, including the Ernst von Siemens Music Award and the Robert Schumann-Preis für Dichtung und Musik for his lifetime achievement in 2022.

Marie-Lise Schüpbach was born in Zurich. She studied oboe with Heinz Holliger in Freiburg im Breisgau, where she graduated with honor. Her orchestral career began at the Cologne Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester. From 1979 to 2017, she held the position of solo English horn at the BR symphony orchestra in Munich. Schüpbach was a member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra for many years. In 2008, together with colleagues of the BR-Symphony Orchestra, she founded the chamber music festival erstKlassik am Sarnersee.

The CD booklet for con slancio includes an extensive interview with Heinz Holliger by Michael Kunkel, in German and English.

Christopher Jesina 1/9/26 Christopher Jesina 1/9/26

Feb. 5: Telegraph Quartet Performing From the Heart – Presented by Kerrytown Concert House

Telegraph Quartet Performing From the Heart
Presented by Kerrytown Concert House

Featuring the Music of Franz Joseph Haydn,
Grażyna Bacewicz, and George Rochberg

Thursday, February 5, 2026 at 7:30pm
Kerrytown Concert House | 415 N 4th Ave. | Ann Arbor, MI
Tickets and More Information

Telegraph Quartet’s New Album
20th Century Vantage Points Vol. 2: Edge of the Storm Out Now

Review downloads & CDs available upon request.

"precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication" – The Strad

www.TelegraphQuartet.com

Ann Arbor, MI – On Thursday, February 5, 2026 at 7:30pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group The New York Times describes as “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert, performing their program, From the Heart, at Kerrytown Concert House (415 N 4th Ave.)

Known for technical prowess and an appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet brings its fluid synchronicity and refined artistry to a program that showcases an array musical styles, featuring Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54 No. 2; Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet No. 1; and George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3.

The Telegraph Quartet says:

“This program, From the Heart, features works from each composer that taps into the deeply heartfelt expression possible through the intimacy of the string quartet. The first, by Haydn, while overtly optimistic in both the first and third movements, plumbs deep sorrow in its second movement and transcendence in the ruminations of the unconventionally slow fourth movement. Grazyna Bacewicz finds herself coming into her voice with the Piano Quintet, a period where she is reconnecting with how music can represent emotion deeply, contrary to her previously held beliefs. We end with a deeply personal work by George Rochberg that followed the premature death of his teenage son. In order to fully express the breadth of emotion he felt was needed after this traumatic event Rochberg, found himself turning away from the calculating serialism of his earlier days, and opening up his palette to the styles of Late Beethoven and Mahler as a vessel to fully express his feelings, an act that was both brave and heretical at the time of its composition.”

From the Heart brings together three works that reveal how music can speak with deep sincerity, each composer opening a private emotional world for us to overhear.

Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54 No. 2 invites us into a realm of elegance tinged with unpredictability. Beneath its poised surfaces lie sudden shifts of color, moments of suspended stillness, and a slow movement that glows with quiet devotion. Haydn’s imagination feels unusually intimate here—playful, searching, and finally leaving us in mid-air with a closing gesture as mysterious as it is heartfelt.

In Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet No. 1, heart and fire coexist. The music bursts forward with rhythmic brilliance and muscular energy, yet within its drive are passages of luminous tenderness. Bacewicz writes with a voice that is clear and courageous—one that carries both the resilience of her era and a fiercely personal lyricism. The quintet moves with the pulse of someone determined to carve beauty out of turbulence.

George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3 is a work born of profound loss and a longing for meaning. Breaking from the strict modernism of his earlier language, Rochberg rebuilds his musical world using memory—echoes of past styles, fragments of familiar gestures—woven into something newly vulnerable. The result is a quartet that feels like a raw confession: grief spoken plainly, beauty reclaimed slowly, the heart laid bare.

Heard together, these three pieces chart a journey across centuries but united by a single thread: the courage to speak directly through sound. From the Heart invites listeners into music shaped not just by craft, but by the full weight and warmth of human feeling.

For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Concert details:

Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Kerrytown Concert House
What: Music by Franz Joseph Haydn, Grażyna Bacewicz, and George Rochberg
When: Thursday, February 5, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Kerrytown Concert House, 415 N 4th Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Tickets and information: https://kerrytownconcerthouse.com/event/telegraph-quartet-from-the-heart/

Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group the San Francisco Chronicle describes as having “soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail,” is presented in concert by Kerrytown Concert House. The ensemble will perform a program showcasing an array musical styles from throughout history – even in work written during the late 20th century. The program will include Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54 No. 2, Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet No. 1; and George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3.